Talk:Byzantines

GA Reassessment

Byzantine Greeks

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delisted. Bgsu98 (Talk) 04:30, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

This is an immediate fail per Wikipedia:Good article criteria, as the article has {{POV}} tags.

Generally, the article fails GA criteria #2 Verifiability and #4 Neutrality.

Some of the issues are discussed in these topics:

• Talk:Byzantine_Greeks#Wikipedia:Good_article_criteria
• Talk:Byzantine_Greeks#Overall_neutrality_of_the_article
• Talk:Byzantine_Greeks#Outdated_or_Greek_nationalist_POV_in_the_article

Some editors acknowledged the issues , and some were willing to work on it (Talk:Byzantine_Greeks#Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment), but I guess they didn't have the time Bogazicili (talk) 22:46, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Comment: The main dispute that inspired the POV tags by the proposer above concerns whether this constitutes an ethnic group, which is sensitive because it determines whether certain people in the modern day have a claim to land. It is complicated by the fact that the terms "Byzantine" and "Greek" have disputed interpretations on scope.

There is no scholarly dispute over the name of these people in the Greek language, which is Ῥωμαῖοι (Romaioi), functionally defined as medieval Greek-speaking Calchedonian-Orthodox people, initially of the Roman Empire when it was based around Constantinople (better known now as the Byzantine Empire). There are inconsistent scholarly references to these people in English, such as Byzantines, Byzantine Greeks, Romans, East Romans, and related. There is a debate on when this group became an ethnic group. The leading scholars who debate this topic are Pohl, Kaldellis, and Stouraitis.

A consensus on this issue is needed, I believe, at a substantive level before interpreting the POV tags as a basis of an immediate fail. The proposer is the sole person who has challenged the GA status of this article, which is not to say they are wrong, but a decision on the article's name and definition is needed first. Biz (talk) 02:07, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

POV tags are in the article because there is a neutrality issue. Neutrality is a Good Article criteria.

The article currently does not meet GA criteria.

After reassessment, decisions such as you mentioned above could be made. You could consider reverting to the 2009 version that passed GA review, and update the article from there with newer sources such as those from Anthony Kaldellis. That might be easier. Bogazicili (talk) 12:56, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Rhomaioi require a Byzantine + Ottoman period disambiguation

Requested move 18 February 2026

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Consensus against moving to proposed titles. If a different title is more accurate, a new RM can be opened. (non-admin closure) Natg 19 (talk) 06:18, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

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• Rhomaioi → Romaioi (Byzantine period)
• Ottoman Greeks → Romaioi (Ottoman period)

– To align with Byzantine scholarship usage (Kaldellis, Stouraitis use "Romaioi") and to better align with Wikipedia policy on WP:TITLE, WP:PRECISION, and Wikipedia:Disambiguation for articles of the same people but in different eras. "Byzantines" is common usage for the Romaioi during the Byzantine period but scholarship in the Ottoman period does not have as much consensus and in the modern era they are still called Romaioi (Greeks in Turkey) though this is more complicated. This is necessary as readers should not think of these are different people but as the same people in different eras. Usage of Greeks as an identifier pre-1821 (versus Greek speakers) is also not neutral as was debated before for Byzantine Greeks and is similarly an issue for Ottoman Greeks as multiple Balkan ethnicities emerged from the Romaioi Biz (talk) 03:55, 18 February 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 04:59, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Oppose First, while there is no consensus as discussed above, Kaldellis remains a minority and largely ignored by the mainstream (acknowledged yes, adopted no). Second, while I am still investigating and reading the Justinian period as a Byzantine Greek article is supposed (still working on it) to replace the deficiencies of using a title Rhomaioi that violates WP:COMMONNAME, it appears that there is considerable literature in the transition of Roman-ness in something else that later on morphed into the modern Greek identity, meaning that the current title might be a mistake. The suggested moves further obscures the established academic literature towards the opinion of a single academic who has yet to be adopted by anyone else. So no. Note that this action is considered a break of the consensus above given you agreed on Byzantine Greeks article. A.Cython(talk) 04:16, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

Understood. If we don't have consensus to rename this, then we will focus this page to be an identity article like the previous proposal, and that can be incorporated into a future Byzantine Greeks article. However, we would still need consensus to rename this from Rhomaioi to Romaioi. Biz (talk) 04:51, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

Rhomaioi is also used. You could search for it in google scholar. I don't know which is better. Furthermore, for the ottoman period Romioi (or Rhomioi) is more common than Romaioi. Additionally among the different ethnolinguistic groups of the Rum millet, Romioi was used for the greek speakers and/or the greek orthodox people (those following the Patriarch of Constantinople). Aetolorhode (talk) 17:45, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

There is no end with this insistence on continuity school of thought, as the next logical step is to move/rename Romans (people) to Romani for consistency reasons and then change the infobox of Mark Antony as Eastern Roman and Cleopatra as Eastern Roman or Byzantine queen. These suggestions create far more inconsistencies as pointed out by scholars and there is a reason why Kardellis unprofessionally lashed out to his colleagues, i.e., he is largely ignored by mainstream. Given that the consensus is broken the best thing is to move the existing page back to its original title or to either Byzantines (people) (similar to Romans (people)) or plain Byzantines by merging with the disambiguation page since this is by far the most popular per WP:COMMONNAME. Breaking the consensus but keeping the current title is inappropriate (and that's the polite way of saying this). A.Cython(talk) 05:45, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

Is calling these people Greek through the ages, not the reverse pattern of the continuity school?

If Romaioi (Byzantine period) is not accepted, because it disambiguates from other Romaioi or Romans, then perhaps the solution is to move the identity aspects of this article to Roman people as you said. If it's too long, then we do what I've long advocated, which is make this an identity article and let it be a section of the Byzantines article that pulls in other articles in summary style. And again, what I've advocated which is we separate names/historiography from identity from population. We can recombine them again in articles, such as a common name article, but we need to treat them as three different topics.

So I agree: Byzantines becomes the page, but this content is long form identity and merits being it's own article as Roman people is already as 8685 words, suggesting we make it Romans (Byzantine period). Biz (talk) 07:11, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

I understand that you do not want the "Greek" in the title. This much is clear. However, having anything Roman becomes problematic because we effectively pick WP:POV. There are three schools of thought and the two reject Roman-ness. My (naive) understanding is that the established common ground in academia (perhaps with the exclusion of Kardellis) is the use of Byzantine as synonymous of Eastern Roman and a signal that there is sufficient differences from the classical Romans. Your suggestion of Romans (Byzantine period) demands to move the Romans (people) to Romans (Classical period). My expectation this will not fly, since the latter already covers material from Byzantines creating overlaps and conflicts. The plain Byzantines is sufficient and it is popular (WP:COMMONNAME) as it serves the purpose of identifying the people (irrespective of ethnic origin) lived in the Byzantine empire and does the least amount of damage to existing articles. My 2 cents. A.Cython(talk) 02:22, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

If the Ottoman Greeks are called Romaioi in scholarship, why are we calling that article Ottoman Greeks? And as these are the same people but in a different period, why are we giving them a different article name here? If both articles are the same people with the same name, why does one periodisation of common name get to determine what happens over the other? If we can have a neutral title for this article, how is it a problem that we include it in summary style in Byzantines, Roman people and Byzantine Greeks which balances all the editor's views of what to call them? And if what they called themselves is the least biased way to name an article, and it is disambiguated with the common term, from the other article of the same people in a later era, why is that such an problem? Why can't that be seen as a creative solution to reflect the scholarship, create neutrality and address all views?

This is a complex topic. But I hope my questions help put context for why I am proposing this. Biz (talk) 07:41, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Is Romaioi more common than ottoman greeks or just Greeks in the scholarship for the Greek speakers or Greek orthodox people in ottoman empire?? Why is it more neutral? The same question for Byzantines instead of Romaioi for the previous period; is it more possible for a reader to search this people under the name Romaioi or Byzantines? Aetolorhode (talk) 10:03, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

• Before 1821, Romaioi/Romioi is more common.
• Neutrality is picking a name that does not pick a side. "Greeks", "Byzantines", and "Romans" is picking a side.
• The issue of what people search for is solved with multiple articles and redirects. We can do everything everyone wants as long as we have a neutral article that can embed into them.

Biz (talk) 18:08, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Oppose for the ottoman Greeks into Romaioi (Ottoman period). Romioi is much more common for the ottoman greeks. Romaioi (byzantine period) is not as bad, but if we choose this, then why not Romaioi (Byzantines), or not just byzantines? The self-identification for byzantine greeks was romaioi/rhomaioi, which now is commonly referred as byzantines (which is even better title). As for the ottoman greeks, the self identification was either Romioi or Graikoi/Greeks. Romaioi (Ottoman period) is a really bad idea not helping at any point. Aetolorhode (talk) 17:52, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

Disambiguation is only to be used when there is another article with the same name. If we do not call any other article Romaioi/Rhomaioi, then there is nothing to disambiuate.

The common name is Byzantines if we are only to talk about the people between 330-1453. Biz (talk) 06:56, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

I think just Byzantines would be the best title for this article instead of Rhomaioi. The current Byzantines wikipedia page could be renamed to Byzantines (disambiguation) or merged to Byzantine (disambiguation). Ottoman Greeks could be renamed to Romioi, not Romaioi. Aetolorhode (talk) 09:18, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

I did a quick scan of the scholarship. I see quite a bit of support that Romaioi. There's even a source in Ottoman Greeks Kakavas 2002, p. 29: "All the peoples belonging to the flock of the Ecumenical Patriarchate declared themselves Graikoi (Greeks) or Romaioi (Romans – Rums)."

Here's a few of the sources I came across

Revisiting the Byzantine Commonwealth: Nodes, Networks, and Spheres Jonathan Shepard (ed.), Peter Frankopan (ed.) p38

• One problem is that in the last centuries of the Roman republic, Rome was already an empire. We can accept that Romanness and republicanism were parts of the Byzantine self-image, but they were not the whole of it. Identities are multiple, even for states; the fact that some Greeks even now might call themselves Romaioi does not mean that they do not think of themselves as Greek, and like-wise, as indeed Kaldellis admits, Byzantines sometimes called themselves Hellenes, or even Graikoi

Islam and Nationalism in Modern Greece, 1821-1940 Stefanos Katsikas

• p54: In 1802 Daniil (1754–1825), a Grecophone Aromanian Vlach priest and scholar from Moscopole, present-day Voskopojë in Albania, wrote, “Albanians, Vlachs, Bulgarians, speakers of other languages, rejoice and prepare to become Romaioi [i.e., Romans, speakers of Koine Greek].”
• p56: Writing in 1842, Sophocles Evangelinos Apostolides, a native of Tsangarada in Mount Pelion and the first tenured professor of Modern Greek in the Western world at Harvard University, claimed that most Greek Orthodox in the Ottoman Empire identified themselves by religion as Romaioi.

Language and National Identity in Greece, 1766-1976 Peter Mackridge

• p50: Konstantinos Koumas claimed that the Fanariots insisted on calling themselves Romaioi rather than Graikoí or Ellines.
• p52: The period between the late eighteenth century and the early nineteenth is marked by the transition from the ‘genos of the Romaioi’ to the Hellenic ethnos.

Biz (talk) 07:39, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Is Romaioi more common than Ottoman Greeks or just Greeks or even Romioi in scholarship? Aetolorhode (talk) 10:05, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

My issue with this Romioi vs Romaioi discussion is that it's like arguing "Brit", which is a contraction of "British". It was not a different name. It is incorrect to say Romioi, not Romaioi. Both versions were in play. Anyone who speaks Greek should know this.

Based on a search on the Oxford collection.

• Romaioi:78 results
• Romioi: 45 results
• "Ottoman Greeks": 337 results. Reduced to 118 when you remove descriptions of "Ottoman-Greek", with the vast majority referring to after the state of Greece was formed.

Ottoman Greeks makes sense after 1821. My argument is that between 1453 and the Greek enlightenment, it is more appropriate to call them something else. Biz (talk) 17:42, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

That's the problem. Your thinking that they need to be called something else is WP:OR! We are not here to write what we think but rather reflect how the literature as a whole deals with the subject matter. If the established literature says something that is viewed as wrong then we write that this wrong thing until there is a change in the established literature. Kardellis is nowhere near being an established literature simply because the rest of the community continues to use the term "Byzantine" everywhere. Unfortunately, the advancement of history is similar to the advancement of science, it advances one funeral at a time. This means we have to wait for some historians to reach their end of their life and see how the rest of them deal with the dead historian's work. It is a very slow process. In the meantime we restore to the established consensus, i.e., Byzantines, and we wait. A.Cython(talk) 18:05, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

As I'm the sole voice here on this view, let's move on and say the consensus it to rename this page as Byzantines. We can flatten the identity of these people with this specific historiography on the basis it's the common name, Byzantines. But keeping Ottoman Greeks is not the common name and it's original research to keep it named as such. As part of this decision, I no longer support creating a separate article called Byzantine Greeks and that should redirect to Byzantines. Biz (talk) 18:27, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Fine, no separate article on Byzantine Greeks. Though the proper thing to do since you broke consensus is to return to pre-consensus status, i.e., Byzantine Greeks. However, I will ignore this. A.Cython(talk) 19:14, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

We had consensus to move to page to Rhomaioi (endonym), on the assumption we make it an identity article that would allow other others to use it in summary style. We have identified Roman people, Byzantines, Byzantine Greeks (which also has a significant Hellenes identity component that could be said is different from the rest) that would pull in this article as supporting content, with Roman people already having a large section.

Ashmedai 119 challenged it, I then discovered it contradicted policy, we discovered Romaioi was the actually more common usage, and someone renamed the article to Rhomaioi as it is currently.

To solve the policy issue and more common spelling issue, when the most recent rename happened which I knew would not stick due to policy, I found the one appropriate way to use brackets which is when it's about the same topic. Given Romaioi during the Byzantine period and Ottoman period are the same people with a different political overlord and different period of time, I thought this would solve the issue.

We now have the discussion to move it this discussion to Byzantines, the Byzantine period common name. It's clear Ottoman Greeks is also not the common name,

So yes, I now see why you think Romaioi (Byzantine period) broke our consensus as this flattens identity and population with this title, when we had the consensus to keep those three themes separate. If we keep identity, population content and naming as three separate things, this is what enables a Byzantine Greeks article.

If we instead flatten identity and population with the title Byzantines, we are doing the same thing as what I did that you are saying broke our consensus.

My preference is to recognise the multi-dimentional complexity on this topic so that readers can have an informed understanding. Flattening complex topics (identity, other peoples names, and the people themselvs) as one thing is what creates unnecessary dispute. The fact that we can have atomic units of content embedded into other articles to respect debates on names and recognise complexity (the Roman, Hellenes and Christian identities of the Byzantines that evolved over different times), allows us to satisfy everyone's positions and create greater depth . But this discussion has gone on too long so and since you and Aetolorhode want to flatten it to Byzantines and you're calling this approach original research, then so be it. Biz (talk) 19:21, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

Consensus broke with the adoption of Roman-ness beyond the narrow focus. Moreover, I discovered this Talk:Byzantine_Empire/FAQ stating that the established consensus in WP is that the primary descriptor should be "Byzantine Emprire" instead of "Eastern Empire", which as I understand also applies to its emperors and citizens. Meaning that whatever we agreed before was moot from the start. While I understand your concerns and they are valid and should be addressed in the main body, however, I fail to see these concerns tramping WP:COMMONNAME and other established conventions as this causes bigger and more serious inconsistencies. Insisting on (semi) universal Roman-ness in this article or elsewhere should come with the re-definition of Byzantine Empire or even merging with Roman Empire, but if this is not going to happen then anything else is moot and every related article should adopt the established convention, i.e., Byzantine.

Note that Romans (people) article has issues as it confuses the Latin people with citizens of different ethnographic origins, meaning it had bigger problems than having the current article as Byzantine Greeks. Merging with the particular article is also a no from me. This means and as you said the current article has a significant Hellenes identity component should be more appropriately returned to original version, i.e., Byzantine Greeks. Your words. I can settle with Byzantines but keeping the Hellenes identity aspect in. If you intent to remove such material then it can be moved to Byzantine Greek article that (for whatever personal reasons) oppose. It starts to appear to me that any attempt to move against previous established convention is a degradation of the current article that started nearly year ago. A.Cython(talk) 17:47, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

The disagreement here is about scope, not just naming.

Renaming this page to Byzantines would not simply retitle the article but broaden its subject. “Byzantines” refers to the inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire in general, whereas this article mainly focuses on the Rhomaioi/Romaioi and the associated historiography.

Under WP:PRECISION, titles should correspond to the defined topic of the article, not a wider umbrella category. Moving to Byzantines would therefore change the topic from an identity/terminology subject to a general population subject.

This also creates overlap with other descriptive treatments of the population (for example a “Byzantine Greeks” article), because the same material would then be split across pages with unclear boundaries.

If editors wish to develop a broader population article under the title Byzantines, that can be done separately. For the present page, the proposed move creates overlap rather than resolving it. Biz (talk) 21:13, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Bingo! By insisting the removal of "Greek" for personal reasons you destroyed the scope of the current article (i.e., violation of WP:PRECISION) and it starts to appear you were pushing WP:POV & WP:OR since you support the activist Kardellis' position, which is by away from being accepted by the mainstream, I have yet to see any evidence on this. The current article focused on Byzantines or (if we include the hellenic identity) Byzantines Greeks, it is not on Rhomaioi/Romaioi as these terms are not used in a wide academic literature compared to Byzantine. I remind you that Talk:Byzantine_Empire/FAQ makes very clear that any deviation from Byzantine requires is violation of established convention, irrespective of scope. So if you want to start writing an article on Rhomaioi/Romaioi you are free to do so, but not by damaging an existing article on anti-national sentiments, because such position is discriminatory itself. "Byzantine Greek" is a well established term on its own right and more popular than Rhomaioi/Romaioi, see Google Ngram. So no Romaioi, no Rhomaoi, no Romans either since the term Byzantines exist to separate/distinguish classical Romans unless of course we are going to discuss the merging Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire and call Cleopatra and Marc Antony as Eastern Romans. If we are not talking about merging then the current article best have its original title or being Byzantines but keeping the Hellenic identity as this is integral part of Byzantine identity, after all the move of the capital signaled the future of the empire on the Greek-speaking domains. A.Cython(talk) 21:45, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

The previous move determined that Byzantine Greeks was not the appropriate title at that time. It did not establish that the article’s topic is the entire population of the empire, nor that Byzantines must therefore be the correct title.

Each move request is evaluated independently based on whether the proposed title matches the subject of the article. My concern here is simply that Byzantines describes the imperial population in general, while this page treats the terminology and self-designation (Rhomaioi/Romaioi) and its historiography.

For that reason the proposed move would broaden the scope of the article rather than just rename it, which is a WP:PRECISION issue rather than a continuation of the earlier discussion. I am not opposing the existence of a Byzantines article, only the application of that title to this specific page. Biz (talk) 22:25, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Each move is determined independently, yes, but not when one of the participants breaks consensus otherwise this creates bad precedent for bad behavior. Effectively it allows one to promise anything and once the move is done to say "so long suckers". Expanding broadness by violating the existing WP:PRECISION is not a justification. The current article was written for Byzantine Greeks, you removed the "Greeks" and then complain that it has too many Hellenic elements. What I see since last March is the constant deterioration of the article and I regret that I agreed to previous move. And given that the move was in violation of established convention, reversal is the only viable option at the moment. The Rhomaioi/Romaioi terminology has been established that is too niche to be include as titles in an encyclopedic articles; main text ok, but no titles per WP:COMMONNAME period. The more you argue the less respect anyone will have since this has been a blatant violation of trust. I will prepare a proposal by the end of day so that we end this endless going around of who did what. A.Cython(talk) 23:26, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

This talk page has seen multiple years of the same debate.

Moving it to Byzantines is the only one most aligned with policy. I don’t like that option, but it’s what this long set of discussions has made clear.

I look forward to your proposal. Biz (talk) 23:51, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

First, I agree that the best option for the current article is just Byzantines, since it is by far more common in scholarship than the rest. And of course Byzantine Greeks, Rhomaioi, Romaioi and Eastern Romans should be mentioned and be redirects here, since they are also used for the the Byzantines in scholarship. Second, for the Ottoman Greeks, I think Romioi (Ρωμιοί in Greek instead of Ρωμαίοι) is much more common in Greek scholarship (the majorithy of the whole scholarship for these people as they are not as famous as the Byzantines or Ancient Greeks in world history) and furthermore Romioi is their actual self-identification, Romaioi is more formal and earlier. However Graikoi (i.e. Greeks) was also used both as an exonym and an endonym during the period before 1821, and perhaps it was even more common than Romioi during the 17th and 18th centuries (and for sure 19th century 1821-1922). This is why I am not sure at all about Romaioi. Romaioi is more acceptable for Byzantines than the Greek speakers and Greek Orthodox people of Ottoman Empire. This is why Ottoman Greeks is even more difficult than Byzantines. Perhaps a descriptive title like Greek orthodox christians of Ottoman Empire or Greek-speakers of the Ottoman Empire (this is what Ottoman Greeks actually implies) may be better. Byzantines is the obvious solution for the current Rhomaioi. Aetolorhode (talk) 19:51, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

I have already presented literature that presents the opposite so this is not going anywhere. Yes this is complex topic, but here is the thing. Keeping Byzantine or Byzantine Greeks as well as Ottoman Greeks etc provides a framework to explore the complexity and the different nuances. By funneling everything under a variation of "Roman" you oversimplify everything and can construed as WP:OR since this oversimplification is not reflective of the literature as a whole. I going to stick to Byzantine for the current article and no change to all others. A.Cython(talk) 17:39, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

I added a request move from Byzantines to Byzantines (disambiguation) at Byzantines wikipedia page. If accepted, then Byzantines can be the title of the current Rhomaioi page or at least a redirect at this page. Aetolorhode (talk) 14:30, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Rome, WikiProject Middle Ages, WikiProject Greece, WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome, WikiProject Greece/Byzantine world task force, WikiProject European history, WikiProject Eastern Orthodoxy, WikiProject Christianity/Noticeboard, and WikiProject Ethnic groups have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 04:59, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

• Weak support, but also consider split/merge of Ottoman Greeks article. By the end of the Ottoman era, there were definitely Ottoman Greeks as a subset of the Rum millet. But prior to Greek nationalism it makes less sense to separate out Ottoman Orthodox Christian groups based on language—or if we're doing so make it more explicit per Aetolorhode's suggestion above. (t · c) buIdhe 05:43, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

  Also note that the nominator's suggestion bluntly violates WP:COMMONAME, Google Ngram has "Ottoman Greeks", but "Romaoi" is so rare that does not even register, see here. Thus it must be rejected.A.Cython(talk) 14:22, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

  The issue for me is, as far as I can tell, these refer to 2 separate groups of people. Ottoman Empire was organized mainly based on religion and less on linguistic ties, which only became more important with nationalism at the very end of the imperial period. Greek Orthodox Christians != Greek speakers != ethnic Greeks. (t · c) buIdhe 05:33, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

  Oh I agree, completely. As there are Greek-speaking Muslims that have survived centuries, see here. A.Cython(talk) 05:55, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

• Clear Oppose; confusing. 'Rhomaioi' here is nowhere near to being a WP:COMMONNAME for that group [] (note that in the search the majority of Rhomaioi mentions come from Byzantine-history context, not (late) Ottoman). The discussion of 'Ottoman Greeks' in the literature is primarily in relation to the period the Greek enlightenment as well as the period prior, during, and after the Greek war of independence, from the 18th and 19th centuries, during which time the Greek label becomes relevant. The article itself has a clear focus on that exact period. Self-determinations of any nation, especially prior to the rise of nationalisms, could be fluctuating (Rhomaioi/Romioi, Graikoi etc. were all used) and in some people perhaps weak, given also the lack of affiliation with any (nation-)state at that time. From 1820s nontheless, there is a Greek state to be affiliated with. Regeardless, the "Romioi" alt name in the lead is IMO doing the job just fine. Piccco (talk) 22:05, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose, mainly on the grounds that "Rhomaoi" is not WP:COMMONNAME by a long shot. Khirurg (talk) 21:47, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

New proposed move

After pointing out the previous proposed moves fail WP:COMMONNAME & WP:PRECISION and per nominator's admission, the title of the current article also fails the same criteria as the consensus for the current recent move was broken. Thus, a new proposed move is to be considered: Rhomaioi → replace disambiguate page Byzantines The links in disambiguate page: the first one is the current article, the second will be integrated in the current article, and the third as well. I am not aware any book calling the ancient citizens of Byzantion (the proper name, not Byzantium) as Byzantines. So there is no real loss in replacement. A.Cython(talk) 05:08, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

I disappeared from this talk page due to real-life pressing demands and I do not know if I will be able to have a sustained participation now (probably not), but fwiw what follows is my (further) 2c on the title of the current article [I do not speak of the Ottoman Romaioi] mainly with a view to correcting some misconceptions and errors under which discussants seem to operate.

The reasoning provided by Biz in the initial post of this section states that, since Kaldellis and Stouraitis "use "Romaioi"", choosing "Romaioi" as the title for the article on the greek-speaking medieval/East Romans results in an alignment "with Byzantine scholarship" usage. This conclusion is not true, because the premise on which is based is incorrect. For, it seems to me then that, if (I repeat: if) one is to assess that the field of Byzantine studies has abandoned the term "Byzantines" and English-speaking scholars have settled on a new appelation for the "Byzantines" this appears to be one along the lines of "East Romans" or "medieval Romans" -- not "Romaioi".

While Kaldellis occasionaly mentions "Romaioi", i.e. the transliteration of the East Romans's name, this is not the way he has chosen to refer to them as a matter of course in his works. He refers to them simply as "Romans". One can easily verify this, if s/he goes through e.g. his Romanland or his New Roman Empire and other recent publications of his. What's more, in a chapter of his Case for East Roman Studies (ch. 2 "Conteners for a New Field-Name") he explicitly rejects the option of substituting "Byzantine" with names that basically transliterate the name from Romaic in other languages: despite "attractive advantages", such as the fact that these terms are "faithfully emic, that is, they were used by the people in question to refer to themselves", (p. 46) as he writes, they "fail to acknowledge our subjects as fully Roman, and posit them instead as a kind of derivative, secondary, or qualified Roman-ish people" (p. 47), and they option is "already heavily tainted by denialism" as "It has already been used often, in both medieval and modern times, in order to deny east Romanness, or it is otherwise implicated in that project". (p. 48) and so forth, until ibid., p.51. As denoted by the title, his proposal is: "For the majority population: Romans or east Romans (the latter for purposes of disambiguation)." (p. 60).

As far as Stouraitis is concerned, I am checking some of his recent publications, including his "What Did It Mean to Be ‘Roman’ in Byzantium?" in Revisiting the Byzantine Commonwealth, his introduction to the collective volume he co-edited on Identities and Ideologies in the Medieval East Roman World and his "Reinventing Roman Ethnicity in High and Late Medieval Byzantium" and what I see is that Romaioi is used in italics, in order to denote the exact word used by the author or people he discusses, but he uses "Roman", "medieval Roman" and "East Roman" when writing in his own voice in English to refer to the Romans of the East. Moreover, that these reference (i.e. to "Romans") are significantly more than the instances in which he uses the transliterated term "Romaioi". [when time will allow, I could get back with a more detailed and analytic report, if requested] As is, I think, the case with at least some of the examples provided by Biz about the usage of "Romaioi" in contemporary scholarship about Ottoman subjects, it is one think for a scholar to state how people called themselves in their language and another for her/him to adopt this appellation in transliteration as the way to refer to thems in the scholar's own language.

The title "Byzantines" is problematic on some accounts (and I tend to agree with them), but discussion about what should replace it seems to be ongoing (with Kaldellis making the "case for East Roman", after finding other replacements wanting, Magdalino -see below- defending the traditional "Byzantine" appellation and Stouraitis liberally employing "medieval East Roman" all the while arguing that the label "Byzantine" is not inherently problematic as "Orientalist" -- an accusation levelled by Kaldellis). This all means that the field of "Byzantine studies" is currently in a state of flux and it would be no a surprise if in no long time the necessity appears to change the title of the article again. For the time being, however, it seems to me that it is too early to declare that there a new scholarly consensus has emerged for the term that will replace "Byzantines" as the most common appelation for the medieval/East Romans.

Nonetheless, a direction towards where things are heading is provided by this common ground (as far as terminology is concerned) between Kaldellis and Stouraitis [i.e. "[X qualification] Romans" ], despite disagreements on various points about the content, scope and quality of Romanness/Roman identity. It has been, however, stated by A. Cython that "No evidence has been presented that Kardellis (sic) is part of the mainstream" and s/he asserted above that Kaldellis's position is "largely ignored by the mainstream (acknowledged yes, adopted no)" and also that it is a "fringe theory". Especially when offered with regards to terminology about identity, which I take to be the main focus of the discussion, this is an unfortunate misreading of the state of the field, as shown above by reference to the terminology used by Stouraitis, perhaps Kaldellis's most frequent if not important critic; it is no wonder that A.Cython's view on Kaldellis being "ignored" is portrayed with no reference to scholarly reviews of Kaldellis's works, which have been largely positive, or even laudatory, even when the reviewer disagrees with aspects of the work under review. Just so that this doesn't get misunderstood, I do not wish to ascribe this with any certainty to an intentional misrepresentation of the field, but rather to limited familiarity with relevant scholarship, or its -per the user's description-"(naive) understanding" of it - and as evidenced by the repeated and constant mispelling of Kaldellis's name as "Kardellis" [sic] throughout this talk page). In any case, one should not rely on personal estimations of Kadellis's writing (which, as the aforementioned case reminds, is liable to misrepresentation), the state of the field has been succinctly summarized by Paul Magdalino in an article that was published a few months ago, in which he puts forward an argument against Kaldellis's case to discard "Byzantium"/"Byzantine" for "East Roman", where (p. 28) nonetheless he informs us that "The Kaldellis thesis is rapidly becoming the new standard paradigm." So much for "fringe theory".

It is the proposal for a separate Byzantine Greeks article, focusing on the post-1204 east Romans [Romaioi], that should rather be described as such, on which I am in agreement with Biz. This is largely based on outdated references (Toynbee) or generalist accounts (Beaton) or a misinterpretation of writings on individual cases of intellectuals who lived outside or after the east Roman state (Lamers). It is obviously determined by Greek national ideology and its scientific character is highly contested (see Gill Page, Being Byzantine, pp. 8-9: "The Frankish period has also been given considerable attention in the work of Greek nationalist historians. This vigorous trend in the historiography of the period concentrates not so much on its importance to the history of the crusading movement or as a backdrop to the end of the Byzantine Roman empire, but as constituting a vital stage in the national history of the Greek people. In this school, the Frankish conquest and occupation which shook the Constantinopolitan empire to its roots were of major importance in redefining the Byzantine sense of identity away from the universalism of the ancient imperial Roman ideal, and towards a narrower Greek orthodox nationalism. Moreover, it might even be said that in this movement the Greeks rediscovered themselves, returning to and giving new value to the geographical heartland of ancient Hellas. In this context and argument, the apparent return by late Byzantine writers to the use of the ancient ‘Hellene’ as ethnic signifier in preference to ‘Roman’ – which had been the overwhelmingly dominant signifier in the eastern empire – is seen as being of crucial significance in confirming a basic continuity of self-identification as Hellenic on the part of the Greeks. § Here, then, there is a more direct concern with issues of ethnicity than can generally be seen in the histories of the crusades or of Byzantium cited above. This approach has been pervasive among Greek historians, of whom one might particularly cite Deno J. Geanokoplos and Apostolis Vacalopoulos. Cyril Mango, however, has eloquently argued against the general thesis, which indeed rests on fundamental misunderstandings of the nature of ethnic identity.")

However, it has been written that "“Byzantines” refers to the inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire in general, whereas this article mainly focuses on the Rhomaioi/Romaioi and the associated historiography". I am not at all sure that this is so; though I cannot positively prove this (and I wonder in what way one who doubts this could be satisfied about it being true), I think that "Byzantines" has been mostly used in contemporary scholarship to denote the *Greek-speaking* inhabitants of the empire, i.e. the east Romans, not, say, non-Greek speaking Bulgarians. It seems to me that book titles etc, some of them used in this very article, suggest that the primary topic of "Byzantines" is the Romaic-speaking people and not any and all individuals subject to the power of the east Roman Emperor. This means that "Byzantines" should become the title of the article on the Romaic-speaking Romans. If, however, other editors, can show that there is no primary topic "Byzantines" should be somehow disambiguated and perhaps "Byzantines (people)" or "Byzantines (Romans)" [in line with both Stouraitis and Kaldellis, whose scholarly debate seems to be moving the discussion on medieval Roman identity forward over the last decade or so] would be apt. Once again, however, I think that even simple "Byzantines" would be fine, as it not egregiously problematic, as "Byzantine Greeks" was, and aligns with WP policy on opting for a common name. The disambiguation page could be then moved to "Byzantines (disambiguation)". Ashmedai 119 (talk) 14:24, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

Academics are saying erroneous statements all time.

• "End of History" by Fukuyama, even the author has admitted that it was wrong
• "I have seen the future and it works" Leftist (West) European political/economic scientists thought Soviet Union as the future for everyone (see discussion in "Why Nations Fail"). Do I need to remind you what happened?

Kalderis (most extreme) position remains a fringe theory as I do not see anyone ready to call Mark Antony as "East Roman" and "Byzantine Studies" institution renaming themselves into "Eastern Roman Studies" as suggested in "Romanland". Acknowledged yes. Adopted no. See also Google Ngram, which shows how many times a particular phrase appears in books, see the difference here. It is not even comparable. So no matter what the particular author said, the evidence is staggering against it. This may change one day. When this happens then we change.

Similarly, for Cyril Mango. We care what the mainstream position really is. Not what a professor here and there said. Can you prove that Mango's position is mainstream? Because based on your own words This approach has been pervasive among Greek historians means that the other position is mainstream, not that of Mango. A.Cython(talk) 23:48, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

I agree with all points raised by Ashmedai 119, especially on scholarship and Wikipedia policy alignment.

For those looking to close this request, it's important to distinguish two things

(1) I do not claim "Romaioi", as used by Kaldellis and Stouraitis, as scholarship consensus for the common name of the people in English during the Byzantine period but consensus on the spelling by the schorlaship on the transliteration.

(2) Ashmedai chooses to ignore what the people during the Ottoman period were called. Yes, he is correct, if we are only talking about the Byzantine period. But the proposal for the article's title was because it is the same people during two periods of history. Elsewhere in this talk, it is clear that Ottoman Greeks is not a common name before 1821, but also, this is a under-studied period of history. Biz (talk) 04:10, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Comment: I abstained from discussions in this TP to focus on real life and to save tons of energy as well as hours of endless (and at the end mostly pointless) typing. I will try to be concise; while I was personally okay with the previous "Rhomaioi (endonym)", it is also true that "Byzantines" is the most common way to refer to the empire's population. As the latter was mostly Greek speaking, the name is most of the times conflated with Greek speakers. I.e. the statement "the Byznatines were Greek speakers" would in fact be correct.

While "Byzantines" alone could be an okay title, a further disambiguating word would still be more appropriate, as the article's subject is not just 'Byzantine subjects' generally, but a specific population group which was also Byzantine subject (but also existed outside of and after the empire itself). For example Rhomaioi (Byzantines), or perhaps better Byzantines (Rhomaioi) (as I believe has previously at some point been suggested) might be optimal. That uses the standard term of modern scholarship, but also includes the name of the people itself, in its native language, thus bypassing further potential confusions of trying to apply modern english translations to a medieval people, which evidently lacks one predominant clear name in modern scholarship. Piccco (talk) 21:21, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

Note that I replied with the above proposal, because it appeared to me that discussions for the name were somewhat ongoing. So, if we are still discussing, the above should be taken as my proposal/answer in the future, as I will likely not return to daily participation either. Piccco (talk) 22:50, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

I have been searching lately for sources that used "Byzantines" for the inhabitants of ancient city. The predominately findings is that Byzantines is by far the WP:COMMONNAME for the medieval era rather than the inhabitants of ancient city (in Google Books, out of the first 40 entries only one referred to the ancient city in a footnote, while the rest corresponded to the medieval era and it was used in the book title). In fact even the article name of Byzantium is entirely wrong as in the literature, e.g., Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium p.344, uses Byzantion for the ancient city and Byzantium for the medieval empire. I can go further, Byzantine Empire is also an inappropriate article title since Byzantium beats the Byzantine Empire in frequency by 4:1 (Google Ngram) or 3:1 at JSOTR (6,519 for Byzantium and 2,313 for Byzantine Empire), not to mention academics, like Kalderis, have expressed caution in the use of the term "Empire".
Thus "Byzantines" is the primary topic, it does not need disambiguation. Evidence has been presented that in modern literature clearly define Byzantines "other than Roman" in direct opposition Kalderis's position of purging Byzantine all together and replacing it with "Eastern Roman", thus the insistence of placing Roman back in the title is puzzling and given that this has led to additional move proposals, which were in violation to WP:COMMONNAME. Thus, it is prudent to minimize the temptation for such future actions unless there are clear cut evidence to support them. The degree of Romanness capturing the fluctuations in the academic opinions can be described in the main text. I have yet to see any evidence that this needs to be in the title. Please share WP:RS to support the claim that Rhomaioi or Romaioi is popular enough or Byzantines is used at the same order as the medieval Byzantines. Without any such evidence the only solution is Byzantines for title of the current article. A.Cython(talk) 23:26, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

As there had once been a consensus for "Rhomaioi", being the native name, and now one for "Byzantines", being the common historiographical name, my proposal was merely to merge those two options to minimize potential disagreement, given also that Byzantines (Rhomaioi) had been discussed by some involved editors before. Eventually either one is okay, though that would remain my 1st option. Piccco (talk) 23:45, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

I will reluctantly agree to Byzantines (Rhomaioi) if this would help to end the discussion. A.Cython(talk) 23:50, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

Ashmedai 119 has previously said:

"Byzantines (Rhomaioi) is ok to describe the people of the empire from 330 till 1453 in a general way.", Biz: "Byzantines (Rhomaioi) makes sense to me.") My only proposal to ameliorate this would be to go with "Byzantines (Romaioi)", that is without an 'h', as this how I see e.g. Stouraitis writing the term down in his latest publications. Ashmedai 119 (talk) 21:50, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

I would also support this as a solution, which shows we have consensus. My concern before is this does not align with broader policy. But I would be happy to be wrong on this. Biz (talk) 04:19, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I think there are no objections for the current article to be renamed as:

• Byzantines apart from the need to replace the disambiguation page, but this is not an issue since there are no evidence that the citizens of the ancient city (Byzantion) are called as such in frequency comparable to the medieval citizens in the literature.
• Byzantines (Romaioi) I will support this (with or without "h") so that we end this discussion, maybe once this is closed more experienced editors can decide whether the parenthesis should stay or not.

The article needs some peace. A.Cython(talk) 00:13, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Agreed.

We can justify the parenthesis on the basis there are two other ethnic groups that are also Byzantines with existing notability.

• Byzantines (Romaioi) --> this page
• Byzantines (Jews) --> History of the Jews in the Byzantine Empire
• Byzantines (Armenians) --> Armenians in the Byzantine Empire

And there are many more, but that's enough to justify this. Including a future Byzantines (Greeks), focussed on the late period. And we can also now list Demography of the Byzantine Empire, with the above, and as it is listed on the page Byzantines, as the people of the Byzantine Empire with Byzantines (Romaioi) the majority population of the Byzantine Empire. Biz (talk) 01:47, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

I also agree with this change. Aetolorhode (talk) 21:54, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

(unindent) I would support "Byzantines" on the grounds of simplicity common usage. "Byzantines (Romaioi)" is extremely clunky and not an appropriate article title, and also not WP:COMMONNAME. Khirurg (talk)

TL;DR: I think "Byzantines (Romaioi)" is not the most suitable title for this article [when compared to "Byzantines (Romans)"], but it's definitely an improvement on the current title and can be an acceptable compromise, but not on the grounds some of the participants in this discussion accept it and not agreeing that it entails what they think it does.

The longer version: First of all, there is no need for anyone to produce an Ngram testifying that "Eastern Romans" is more popular a term than "Byzantines" (as if a single participant in this discussion had argued otherwise or proposed changing the article's title to "Eastern Romans") and it is, of course, a truism that "academics are saying erroneous statements all time" [sic]. This, however, does not mean that anyone is at liberty to discard what reliable sources say. To determine the stance of the scholarly community on a matter it is necessary to take into account relevant evidence and in this encyclopedia this amounts to reliable sources -most usually produced by the scholars participating in this community- that describe, in this case, the state of the field. This means that Magdalino's recent statement that Kaldellis's thesis on Roman identity "is rapidly becoming the new standard paradigm" in Byzantine studies cannot be discarded, unless one can refer to a diverging statement by a scholar of similar stature. Is there such a recent statement about the state of the field in a reliable source contradicting Magdalino's? I doubt it, but, if there is, one should present it. If there is not, it follows that this article (and others) should take into account Magdalino's assessment of the importance of Kaldellis's thesis -- and not the ungrounded disregard for it by an editor, who keeps misspelling the name of the scholar in question. Likewise with Gill Page's evaluation of the potency of the critique of "Greek nationalist historians" (as per Page, Being Byzantine (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009), p. 8) by Cyril Mango: one might attempt to dismiss it as just something said "here and there" as much as s/he likes or speak as if "Greek nationalist historians" are coterminous with the community of Byzantinists, but when examining whether "Mango's position [i.e. his position contrasting that of "Greek nationalist historians"] is mainstream" for the purpose of editing this encyclopedia, one cannot disregard what reliable sources state. In this case, unless surveys in reliable sources more recent and of similar or -if possible- higher academic stature can be produced, suggesting a different assessment of the field, then there are no grounds to doubt the assessment provided in Page, Being Byzantine (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009), p. 8-9.

Again regarding the acceptance of Kaldellis's position in the scholarly community, A.Cython writes that it should be considered a "fringe theory" because s/he "do[es] not see anyone ready to call Mark Antony as "East Roman"". This derives from a remark in a review of Kaldellis's Case for East Roman Studies by Panagiotis Theodoropoulos. First of all, even if one were to only read Theodoropoulos's review, s/he would read that Mark Antony "can be called 'East-Roman'". Moreover, if one bothers to read the relevant passage of the book under review (The Case for East Roman Studies, p. 53), s/he will find that this is not proposed by the author as a certainty to be adopted; Kaldellis writes that he feels "tempted to push this category [=of "Romans of the east, who had a largely Grek culture but were no less Romans than their western counerparts at the time"] back to include the triumvir Mark Antony, who ruled the east Roman empire from Alexandria, transplanting almost the entirety of the Roman political machine (consuls, senate, armies, and courts) into the midst of a mostly Greek-speaking city" (after 33/32 BC). It is not amiss to point out that this "temptation" is no more "extreme" than the usual treatment of Diocletian as the "first Byzantine emperor", some decades before the city of Byzantium was refounded as the capital of the Roman state. In any case, this is a red herring; Kaldellis (p. 60), as even Theodoropoulos notes (pp. 516-7), proposes that the designation "east Roman" should be used in place of simply "Roman" "for purposes of disambiguation" and, furthermore, the scholarly acceptance of a theory in general is not judged by the treatment of its minutia, just like scholars can disagree about whether Diocletian should be considered a "Byzantine" emperor or not without this diminishing the usefulness and commonness of the "Byzantine" label.

Moreover, the fact that Kaldellis's proposal (published less than two years ago) that a change of the name of the field of "Byzantine studies" is necessary in order to discard time-old prejudices has not -as yet- been widely accepted does not mean that key elements of his historical theory about the fundamentally Roman character of "Byzantine" identity or culture have not been met with growing acceptance, despite differentiations about the modality of the Roman identity in Byzantium (e.g. national or ethnic? etc). This is also the point of view of Stouraitis, who, in a chapter of his published last year ("Byzantine History State of the Field and Greek Perspectives" in History and Historiography in Greece (NY: Berghan, 2025), p. 46), speaks of

"a growing consensus within the field of Byzantine history, which had begun to take shape toward the end of the previous century and which has become established in present time. Even though the use of the artificial label “Byzantine” continues to be predominant, the majority of present-day Byzantinists approach the historical identity of the culture they are studying as Roman, albeit not necessarily in the essentialist fashion that the theory of “Roman denialism” propagates. Moreover, the new generation of Byzantinists is becoming incrementally aware of the need to use the term “Byzantine” free of its ideological baggage. On top of that, Byzantium’s Roman identity is increasingly highlighted in Medievalist circles as well. [...]"

This is generally in agreement with Magdalino's observation that Kaldellis's thesis on Roman identity is "becoming the new standard paradigm". In other words, since (per Stouraitis) the "use of the artificial label “Byzantine” continues to be predominant", this should (in accordance with WP:COMMONNAME) be the name of this article -- the term that should follow in parenthesis, though, is not "Romaioi", but its English translation, that is the English term that is unsurprisingly more commonly used between the two in contemporary English-speaking scholarship and that corresponds to the view of "the majority of present-day Byzantinists" as to "the historical identity" of Byzantine culture, i.e. "Romans" (for an indication of its preponderance see the recent volume edited by Stouraitis Identities and Ideologies in the Medieval East Roman World [added emphasis...] (Edinburgh: EUP, 2022): "Rhomaioi" and "Romaioi" are present only once, "Romans" 67 times, and "Byzantines" 67). It seems that the disinclination to use "Romans" in the parenthesis corresponds to a Greek nationalist position that wishes to preserve the presentation of the medieval Romaic-speaking Romans as members of a perennial Greek nation and goes against the fact that "Romans" is the term that is most commonly used between the two. Regardless, "Byzantines (Romaioi)" is an improvement on the current title and does not hinder the development of the article to include the scholarly discussion of Byzantine/east Romanness.

However, it does not follow that new articles or redirections such as "Byzantines (Jews)" or "Byzantines (Armenians)" and so on should be created. For, in cases where an article's title is disambiguated with the use of a term in parenthesis the word before the parenthesis is used as such to refer to the subjects being disambiguated. For example, Mercury (planet) and Mercury (element) are both called simply "Mercury" hence the need for the disambiguation. In the case of the Jews, the Armenians or the Bulgarians etc living in the east Roman empire, however, they are not known simply as "Byzantines". The term, as used in contemporary scholarship, denotes either the Romaic-speaking population, which is the focus of this article, or the totality of the subjects of the east Roman emperor -- not each minority non-Christian, non-Romaic speaking group by itself. And, of course, there is no need for another "Byzantines (Greeks)" article, since, as Stouraitis writes -in his "What did it mean to be 'Roman' in Byzantium?" in Jonathan Shepard and Peter Frankopan (eds), Revisiting the Byzantine Commonwealth: Nodes, Networks, and Spheres (Oxford: OUP, 2025), p. 53- the terms 'Greek' and 'Roman' as used post-1204 "do not denote two distinct ethnicities, but rather one." So, I agree with moving this article on the Romaic-speaking to the new title "Byzantines (Romaioi)" -or, better still, "Byzantines (Romans)"- but this does not mean that other "Byzantines (X)"-titled articles, with the exception of the one about all subjects of the east Roman emperor, should be created. Ashmedai 119 (talk) 22:19, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

what about Byzantines (Eastern Romans) ? Aetolorhode (talk) 01:40, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Byzantines (Eastern Romans) fails policy for the reason Ashmedai explained. However, to call this page Romans that is where disambiguating comes in as its distinguishes subjects with the same name (ie, see Romans). This is because the Romans of the east were not the same Romans of the west, the classical age, or the Japanese rock band

The emphasis on "Byzantines" as the common name -- despite the fact we can also say "Byzantine X" is also respecting the common name -- is why there is no room to move on this. The people of this article will get their identity flattened with the general population but that's unfortunately the forced result of this interpretation of policy. Romans (Byzantine period) would have been an accurate application of policy and reflection of precise scholarship, but as was said before, this talk page needs peace. I agree that Byzantines (Romaioi) is clunky.

It seems the only consensus we have, and this includes compliance with policy, is "Byzantines". Biz (talk) 04:25, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

I prefer just Byzantines above all else. However, I also prefer Byzantines (Rhomaioi) or something similar better than just Rhomaioi. Byzantines is the most common and this is why it should be included in the title somehow. Aetolorhode (talk) 17:27, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

I have been trying to revise recent literature on Byzantine/east Roman identity over the last few days and I came across this passage that provides an overview of contemporary scholarly usage of "Byzantines":

"Does “Byzantine” encompass all subjects of the “Byzantine empire” or only the (otherwise unnamed) majority from whom the (named) minorities were ethnically differentiated? Books vary in their usage. No clarity has emerged, and little effort has been made to seek it."

This passage (from Kaldellis, Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), p. xii) seems to me to suggest that between the two meanings of "Byzantines", that is (a) the totality of the subjects of the eastern Roman empire and (b) the majority group, there is no PRIMARYTOPIC. Is there another reference in an equally recent and well-established source that provides another evaluation of the relative prevalence of each of the two meanings and states that one of the two is clearly the one that most scholars have in mind? It may be the case that in the preceding discussion editors have located other such references in reliable sources, but I do not have currently the time to go through recent discussions all the talk page to check whether this is true. However, if there is not, it follows that "Byzantines" should remain a disambiguation page and that "Byzantines" in this article's title should be disambiguated (I am saying this in self-correction -- cf. here my claim that there is a primary topic for "Byzantines"), and, if most users are not OK with "Romans" (which disambiguates the majority group from other minorities, such as Slavs, Jews, Armenians, Arabs, Franks), the transliteration of the Romaic term "Romaioi" -notwithstanding its "clunkiness", which I fail to see, its not being universally accepted in scholarship and not being my preferred choice- is not much different and (as I had noted here) gathers the acceptance of most, if not all, participants in the discussion over the few months. Ashmedai 119 (talk) 14:01, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

There is a mention of Anthony Kaldellis himself in the book "Έλλην, Ρωμηός, Γραικός: συλλογικοί προσδιορισμοί & ταυτότητες" , in page 213, where he writes in English: "The concept acquires different contours if we look to the east and include the persepctive of the Byzantines, the self-identifying Romans (albeit Greek-speaking) of the Eastern Empire." In this part he clearly calls the Greek-speaking self-identifying Romans of the Byzantine Empire, with the common name, Byzantines. There is also this: Theodoropoulos P. Did the Byzantines call themselves Byzantines? Elements of Eastern Roman identity in the imperial discourse of the seventh century. Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. 2021;45(1):25-41. doi:10.1017/byz.2020.28 Aetolorhode (talk) 14:16, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi Ashmedi

You are right

Byzantines (Romaioi)

• Willing to support: Ashmedai 119, A.Cython, Biz, Aetolorhode, Piccco
• Not supported: Khirurg

Byzantines is recognised as the common name but editors have long had consensus here that a segment of the population needs to be distinguished, that being the majority population. We are applying precision here because we all agree it is needed. My review of scholarship, although it confirms Byzantines as the common name, there is only an implication the primary meaning as Romans. But which to the Talks consensus, does not distinguish different types of Romans, such as the Greek speaking Chalcedonian Christians of this article and that scholars all agree formed an ethnic group by the late period that links to modern day Greeks.

You had suggested Byzantines (Romans) but this does not meet policy and Romans (Byzantine period) suggestion came out of a discussion I had with A.Cynthon which uses disambiguation correctly (and per consensus I have with you, aligns with the latest scholarship).

We have three options now that meet talk consensus and policy compliance.

• Byzantines
• Byzantines (Romaioi)
• Romans (Byzantine period)

Even though the second and third options are basically saying the same thing, the third option is more like saying the first option and doesn't account for the precision Talk has agreed on. Which means for this article, Byzantines (Romaioi) should be recognised as having the strongest consensus. Biz (talk) 22:11, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Yes and no.

• Yes that the authors tend to define Byzantines as Greek-speaking Christians as a way to separate from the Romans of the classical age who were pagan and Latin-speaking.
• No because the established consensus is that the starting date of Byzantium is 330 AD (both in the current article and numerous WP:TERTIARY sources), meaning that if "Byzantine Empire" started at a time when Greek-speaking population was not yet dominant and it took several centuries to reach this point. Some authors explicitly do not like this as they would prefer Byzantine to equate with just the eastern part (calling the West and East union as Roman).

Note: WP:TERTIARY explicitly states: Reliable tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other. (added emphasis)

In other words, the consensus uses the term (as seen below) to describe the slow identity crossover from 330 to 1453. Now depending where each author lies among the different schools of thought that I have mentioned several times, these authors will concoct different argumentation, but the average still maintains and prefers Byzantine over Roman (any variation).

• The intro of The Routledge handbook on identity in Byzantium 2022 Michael Stewart (editor) provides a clear explanation why "Byzantine" descriptor is used in the literature.
  • p.3 the Christian state that Justinian ruled from Constantinople had changed as a political and social entity from the Latin-speaking, Italian-based, non-Christian Republic, and early imperial Roman empire, a difference that some in the sixth century CE appeared to recognise, as we can observe in Usdrila’s letter.23 Hence, this book takes as its starting point the year 330, the date of the “foundation” of Constantinople, formerly the city of Byzantium. The fourth century CE was a momentous one in Roman history, and this civic transformation was just one of many changes usually associated with the advent of the medieval Roman Empire, Byzantium. (added emphasis) Note that this definition of Byzantium includes Byzantine Justinian who was a Latin-speaking emperor.
  • p.4 To sum up, though we should and will debate throughout this volume the use of the term “Byzantium,” we suggest that it still is a useful way to differentiate it from its earlier Roman incarnations, while always appreciating that the label is an early modern invention. Despite objections, the "Byzantine" is king of the hill.
• The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies 2008
  • pp. 3-4 BYZANTINE Studies are concerned with the history and culture of what has come to be known as the Byzantine Empire, that is, the empire of East Rome. This was centred on the city of Constantinople (modern Istanbul), generally agreed to have been founded in 324 by the emperor Constantine to be the capital of the eastern portions of the Roman Empire [...] Its emperors and citizens thought of themselves as Roman (romaioi) while the inhabitants of Constantinople regularly referred to themselves as Constantinopolitans and their city as the Queen City. [...] 'Byzantium' and 'Byzantine' are now used freely to refer to all aspects of the East Roman Empire and its culture. As an extension of the Roman Empire Byzantium's structures of government and administration evolved seamlessly from those of the late Roman empire of the first centuries CE, with Latin initially the language of administration. The language of its literary culture, however, was Greek. From its inception Constantinople was a Christian city, whose bishop in time became the ecumenical patriarch of the Orthodox Church while the rituals and thought patterns of Christianity became all pervasive in the Byzantine way of life. The defining characteristics of this empire are thus that it was Roman in law and government, Greek in language and literary culture, and Christian in its religion. (emphasis added) see the contradictory statement: on on hand it is defined at 324/330 but then the term describes anything East Roman. Moreover, the citizens of the city are described as Constantinopolitans so "Byzantines" is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for the citizens of the empire. Note that WP:PRIMARYTOPIC explicitly states:

Although a word, name, or phrase may refer to more than one topic, sometimes one of these topics can be identified as the term's primary topic. This is the topic to which the term should lead, serving as the title of (or a redirect to) the relevant article.. [...] The primary topic might be a broad-concept article, as mentioned above. (added emphasis) This is the case for Byzantines article as a broad article covering all aspects of the citizens of Byzantium. I only agreed to Byzantines (Romaioi) for this discussion to close, which is not closing. The more I read the more clear it becomes that Byzantines is the appropriate title for the current article. The citizens of the ancient city Byzantion (not Byzantium as it currently named) is very rarely called as Byzantines (just type on "Byzantium" at the Google Book search and tell me how many of the entries are for the ancient city). The term Byzantines is explicitly used to distinguish these medieval Romans from the classical era, so why do we keep insisting in sneaking in Romanness? I have read every source mentioned above and I found frustrating when counter-arguments are presented within these sources. Take for example the following:

• Revisiting the Byzantine Commonwealth: Nodes, Networks, and Spheres, yes "the terms 'Greek' and 'Roman' as used post-1204 "do not denote two distinct ethnicities, but rather one." which equates to Byzantines, it does not equate calling them plain Greek or Roman... note the negation of the latter (so Romaioi/Rhomaoi/Romans). From the same source at pp. 48-51: it describes Byzantium as a city state, which ruled over different people, Greek, Syrians, etc. It even provides an example how the local population acted against the wishes of royal court. It rejects the notion of pre-modern nation and supports the differentiation from Romanness.

The scholarship does distinguish the Roman, Byzantine and other identities. I will provide one example that I encountered recently.

• Procopius and the Sixth Century 2005, Routledge p. 2 With the works of Procopius of Caesarea [...] He is the major Greek historian of Late Antiquity, perhaps even of Byzantium as a whole, and the proper understanding of his works is crucial to many issues, not least that of the transition from the ancient to the medieval world. (added emphasis) If the term Byzantines automatically meant only Greek speaking population then there was no need to define Procopius as Greek.

Byzantines is more than just Greek-speaking population, but different from Roman. The latter is emphasized in the literature (just as it is different from Greek as well) and so it our job to reflect this. Noone has expressed objection for plain Byzantines so it appears this has the strongest support, I am just saying, because it went missing in the previous reply. A.Cython(talk) 02:29, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

I also agree that Byzantines is the best title. Either mention them as overwhelmingly Greek speaking or mention the dominance of Greek language at first as lingua franca and then as the only official, is not so controversial. The major issue is that something recognisable, i.e. Byzantine Greeks, has been replaced with a name less common, that is Rhomaioi, which is recognisable mainly only by related scholars and Greek speakers. Byzantines (Romaioi) would be an improvement compared to Rhomaioi. Aetolorhode (talk) 02:45, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Yes, Byzantines is the safest choice. I've also said it before so we can move on.

However, my point was missed and reflects a consensus from most of last year's debate.

This is it does not distinguish the people who were Byzantines who later became Greeks by the modern understanding of ethnicity. A notable topic. We can't call them Byzantine Greeks, we've been debating this compromise with Romaioi somewhere in the title, but the Byzantines solution is we eliminate them as a standalone article on the basis they are the wp:primarytopic of Byzantines. This is the logic that Ashmedai argued before for Byzantines, and that he is now saying it is not the case. We also do not need to see scholarship from 15 years ago, as this is topical with today's scholarship where even 2022 is out of date and we are trying to interpret what the new consensus is. This is Ashmedai's point and I wish we took more effort in understanding the nuance of what he is saying. Biz (talk) 06:04, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Byzantines should be. As for this issue being topical, I strongly disagree, if anything else we should rely on established work and not on work that the academia is still assessing, i.e., most of the last decade of literature should be a suspect. We need to let the dust to settle and only then inquire whether it has become mainstream. In a field that is vast and with a long history, it is in WP a big no no to judge solely based on publications of the previous year. WP is not a fashion show, i.e., this year black in next year yellow is back. Besides, these questions have been topical since the beginning of the field more than a century now, none of these are new. A.Cython(talk) 07:31, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Let me attempt to restate this based on the most relevant facts:

• Due to Wikipedia policy (wp:common) the people of the Byzantine Empire should be called Byzantines. Separately, Talk here has long debated and we can summise in saying the issue is whether the people in this article are the primary topic when associated with Byzantines.
• Wikipedia policy requires that if an article is the wp:primarytopic that they need to be the one article as the common name. Based on the most relevant scholarly opinion that best recognises this, we can determine this with the following:
  • "The invention of Byzantium in Early modern Europe", published in 2021, in the introduction pages 1-2, which serves as tertiary, it is stated as follows: The people whom present-day scholars label as "Byzantines" called themselves "Romans" (Ρωμαίοι), as did their neighbors in the Islamic world, who knew their empire as the bilad a-Rum: the "land of the Romans". Western medieval contemporaries usually referrred to them as "Greeks" (Graaeci), reflecting the contested legacy of both the Roman Empire and Roman identity in the Middle Ages."
  • "The Routledge handbook of identity in Byzantium", published in 2022, in the introduction page 2-7: "Roman" and "Greek" were only two of the many markers of identity in Byzantium...the increasing place of Christianity in all aspects of of the Roman world represents one of the dominant developments of Late Antiquity and is a defining feature of Byzantium...to sum up, though we should and will debate throughout this volume the use of the term "Byzantium", we suggest that it is still a useful way to differentiate it from its earlier Roman incarnations, while always appreciating that the label is an early modern invention...Romans, provincials, emperors, slaves, peasants, elites, Christians, Jews, philosophers, soldiers -- Byzantium was a big tent that enclosed all of these facets of individual and social identity...over its long social and political history, perhaps no other individual or institution embodied the ideals of the Byzantines's sense of their tripartite identity (Hellenic, Romans, Christians/Orthodox) as much as the emperor.

While it is clear Byzantines is used to denote the people by these high quality sources, it is implied that the Roman, Christian-Orthodox and Greek-speaking people of this article are the primary topic of the Byzantines. Ashmedai introduces two sources that is a strong perspective for us to consider but they are not tertiary. To state this another way, it is a valid minority position to say the people of this article should have a different article. Which leaves us to conclude unless a more recent tertiary source can be found, we should accept that the scholarly consensus as of 2022, is to make this article Byzantines. Biz (talk) 02:37, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Update: I searched and found a reputable 2025 tertiary source. "Revisiting the Byzantine Commonwealth: Nodes, Networks, and Spheres". It consists of chapters from most of the well-regarded Byzantists today (except Kaldellis, and many who challenge him). The abstract is telling and it is written by the editor Jonathan Shepard:

Obolensky acknowledged the concept’s intangibility and paradoxes, and the very idea of commonwealth (alongside empire) is now highly contentious. So are the questions of whether ‘empire’ befits the polity at the heart of Obolensky’s study, and what to call its inhabitants: Byzantines. In the closing chapter written by the editors Jonathan Shepard and Peter Frankopan, they use "East Roman" to describe the emperor, "East Roman lands", and "Byzantine sources". I've yet to read it as access is down but I believe it is necessary we take this Oxford resource into consideration to determine what the 2025 consensus is. Biz (talk) 03:57, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Minority opinions do not trump tertiary sources (even if they are 3 or 15 years old). Academics are forced to say/publish something new in order to build their careers to get tenure, but this new thing is not necessarily the community's position. A single tertiary source is still not reflective of the consensus that have been publishing decades of work and probably continue to do so.

• Also note "Roman denialism" (reads as a conspiracy theory) appears to be the position of the supporters of Continuity School after being unable to formulate a counterargument against Alexander Kazhdan Continuity and Discontinuity in Byzantine History, which concludes Approached from such point of view, Byzantium appears to be not so conservative, so traditional or so "continuous" as Weiss believed. Continuity was rather the exterior shape of its éxistence, a form of its self-consciousness, capable of masking its real discontinuity. I have not seen an intelligent counter-argument since then.

Either way, I suggest to hold your horses and assess the mainstream rather hunting down the latest transient academic opinion. Whether indeed there is a change from Byzantine to East Roman will not be determined by single proclamations of a single and a minority academics but from the large collective of the field as a whole, as reflected by Google Ngram, which show that Byzantines is nearly 70 times more popular than East Romans. So we have to wait for some time until East Roman catches on. A.Cython(talk) 03:56, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

To demonstrate to you that even in 2025 things are still in Byzantine side, here one more tertiary source: A Concise History of Byzantium by Warren Treadgold (2025) pp. xiii–xiv On the other hand, I differ with other scholars, particularly Anthony Kaldellis, author of a recent survey of Byzantine history, who argue that the Byzantine Empire should be called the “New Roman Empire,” the “East Roman Empire,” “Romania,” or “Romanland” and should be categorized a “republic” or “nation-state.” Every Byzantinist knows that the Byzantine Empire was a continuation of the Roman Empire and that its people called themselves Romans throughout its history; almost all Byzantinists also think that the Roman Empire changed so much in its later phase that another name is needed to distinguish it. This is the reason the terms “Byzantine Empire” and “Byzantium” have been generally accepted since the nineteenth century. The argument against them is essentially that they have acquired negative connotations that can be avoided by using other names to “rebrand” Roman history after the third century. This argument makes little sense to me. The Byzantinists who have used the terms “Byzantine Empire” and “Byzantium” have taken a mostly sympathetic attitude toward their subject, though they have made some criticisms of it. Justified criticisms are a feature of all sound scholarship, even if today many scholars appear to feel that they should defend their fields uncritically. (Historians of Nazi Germany are honorable exceptions.) Unjustified criticisms should be refuted by arguments and evidence, not by changing well-established terms to obscure the issues. (added emphasis) A.Cython(talk) 04:21, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Good find. To be clear, I have not read Jonathan Shepard yet, and the excerpt suggests he is still using the Byzantines. Treadgold's opinion matters as much as Shepard's, even though I'm defining tertiary scholarship a bit more more strictly (ie, Shepherd other than being prominent in himself, is the editor of a volume, and this work has high prominence by virtue of the editorial board at Oxford).

Seems like we are in the middle of the debate right now. It seems picking "Byzantines" now, in light of this scholarship debate, is picking a side just as much as "East Romans" would be. Biz (talk) 06:08, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

There is no debate, all I see is overemphasizing minority opinions, I have seen misquoting/misinterpretations from books to keep the Romanization alive against WP:DUE, I have lost all good faith on this. I have been far more patient than I could master.

• Byzantines is 70 times more popular than "Eastern Roman" and this does not even require a debate.
• For the terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Byzantium" vs "East Roman Empire" it is even worse, at least 240 times more popular.

We have a debate when things is 1-2 times different, not when 70-240 times. This has been violation of WP guidelines several times over.

I will leave this for one week until someone makes an intelligent/valid argument/objection. If there are no valid objections this discussion will close. By valid I mean per WP guidelines. For moving requests, one does not require an administrator to close the discussion and so far no one has raised an objection for Byzantines. So Byzantines will be. If ever the academic discussion settles down, then we can open a discussion, but until then the article needs peace. A.Cython(talk) 06:36, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

This move proposal I raised needs to close. Naturally, a new one will be needed as talk is never-ending here.

I only just realised Ashmedi first introduced Byzantine Commonwealth: Nodes, Networks, and Spheres which may contribute to his changed view and when you referenced it you said yes "the terms 'Greek' and 'Roman' as used post-1204 "do not denote two distinct ethnicities, but rather one." which equates to Byzantines, it does not equate calling them plain Greek or Roman it comes across as WP:OR. Now that I've looked into it, I see it has high importance to read this book before having anything further to say.

For this topic, we go by the consensus of the Byzantists everything else is noise. Biz (talk) 16:04, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

@Biz and A.Cython: I just closed the previous RM as it sounded like there was no support for the proposed titles. Please open a new RM for the new titles that you wish to move to. Natg 19 (talk) 06:23, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for closing the previous request. Not sure a RM needs to open since we had the discussion, but I guess protocol is protocol. A.Cython(talk) 20:15, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

Proposal to end proposals

Since March there has a continuing pressure to remove the identity aspects of the current (originally Byzantine Greeks) article. Whether there were good intentions or not, whether for national sensitivities or out of fear of such sensitivities, whether the academic literature is changing remains to be seen. What we can do is to apply the established conventions, e.g., Talk:Byzantine_Empire/FAQ, and have a flexible/inclusive narrative to accommodate the different schools of thought of who are the Byzantines and their Byzantine Empire. Yes, it is an anachronism, but so is "Roman Empire" and the people called themselves Romani. The term Byzantines is synonymous to Romans, but it is used to distinguish from the classical Romans; the term beats any other descriptor over a wide range of margin, see Google Ngram. The crossover between classical Romans and Byzantines is debated as long as the field existed and at this point there are three schools of thought as I mentioned several times in the past, see here. However, Byzantine Empire article has the starting date of the empire as 330 AD. This resolves some issues but it also creates new problems as the population/citizens were not homogeneous, and given the long duration of the empire (330-1453) the population and identity substantially changed, making our task even more difficult. For example, the choice of Justinian's reign as the transition from Roman Empire to Byzantine Empire is more natural and it is supported by two schools of thought. Moreover, it is well established in the literature that by Justinian's time the Italo-Romans viewed the Greco-Romans (i.e., Byzantines) as not one of the same and even were willing to fight along with the Ostrogoths against the Byzantines and the same applies for Byzantines, who viewed the Italo-Romans inferior for having spent 60 years under barbarian rule. It is one of critical problems that the Continuity school has failed to address. Nevertheless, 330 AD is what we have and we will work with this.

My proposal follows the blueprint established previously by Biz, except that the title of the current article to be Byzantines or Byzantines (people). The former has the difficulty of dealing with the existing disambiguation page, but it is not that we cannot deal without some effort. The latter title is similar to Romans (people) and Byzantines (people) can act as a continuation of the particular article. I am in favor of the former as is Aetolorhode, it is plain and simple. Now specifically,

1. Close existing move request as not reached consensus.
2. Change the current article title to Byzantines or Byzantines (people)
   • Scope: The citizens of the empire from 330 until 1453, but without any ethnographic identity emphasis.
     • This allows for different articles of the various ethnographic identities to be developed, Greco-Romans, Italo-Romans, Goths, Jews, Armenians, etc., as before.
     • If Byzantines then we replace the disambiguation and incorporate the three links (one is the current article, the other requires a link to the population of the Byzantine Empire, and the citizens of ancient city of Byzantium will be a hatnote), which are pretty straightforward.
3. Separate article with the name Byzantine Greeks
   • Scope: To describe the Greek/Hellenic identity suppression in mid-period and eventual crisis (Forth crusade, etc) and revival in the late period, along the lines of the previous proposal. It does not really matter whether one agrees or not, this will be done as there is substantial literature on this topic as of right this is not covered sufficiently by any article anymore. The Rhomaioi#Identity will moved to the new Byzantine Greeks article to make the Byzantines or Byzantines (people) ethnographic neutral. It will also resolve the dispute tag as well.

The proposed title resolves the issues around WP:COMMONNAME and it is in agreement with established convention Talk:Byzantine_Empire/FAQ. It also preserves the principles of the previous proposal. Is it perfect, none is, but it better than anything else by a long shot based on WP policies. A.Cython(talk) 01:46, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

I appreciate the continued effort to resolve this. This needs to be supported by tertiary scholarship. But before getting into that I could support Byzantine People as that's the appropriate use of the periodisation label. Byzantines is the common name for the people, but does this overrule "Byzantine" which is for the subject? Byzantines (people) does not meet policy as it needs to disambiguate another article called "Byzantines" which doesn't exist (unlike Romans has a lot more similar topics requiring it).

Regarding scholarship:

• What sources support treating a subset of centuries as Byzantine Greeks?
• More generally, is there tertiary scholarship that organizes the subject in this way?

By tertiary I mean broad overviews or handbook-type works that summarise the field. For example, the opening chapter of the Routledge Handbook on Identity in Byzantium treats Roman identity as the overarching social category within which regional, linguistic, and religious differences operated. That makes me unsure that moving the Romaioi material out of the main article reflects how the literature structures the topic.

I am aware the post-1204 period is often discussed differently, but I have not seen tertiary works that define those centuries as a distinct people called “Byzantine Greeks.” If such sources exist they would be very helpful for evaluating the proposal. At this point I am mainly trying to determine whether the proposed structure reflects how the scholarship defines the subject. Biz (talk) 03:47, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

I found another source. I've not read it, but it meets the definition of tertiary. It is The Romans: A 2,000-Year History by Edward J. Watts

• I'm not aware of anyone doing a history this long and because it's narrative, it defines a standard we can align to
• He ends the history at 1204. He says that's when the state stopped being Roman. This creates support for treating the 1204-1453 period different. Now whether we can link the people of this period as "Byzantine Greeks" that's a different matter, but this is what we need to justify decisions like this.
• Per the WSJ

  This maximalist definition of Rome results in a sweeping historical survey that spans two millennia, beginning around 800 B.C. and ending in A.D. 1204, when crusader armies, instead of invading the Holy Land, sacked Constantinople. The Byzantine empire endured for some 250 years more, but Mr. Watts maintains that because the crusaders “imposed their own, foreign ways of doing things” they severed the link between eastern “Romans” and Rome itself, a link that would never be restored.

Biz (talk) 20:09, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

The end of the Roman state has been debated since the beginning of the field itself. Was the move of the capital in 330 AD the establishment of a new empire? See Roderick Beaton Greeks, a global history pp 250-251

The inauguration of the refounded city took place with much pomp and circumstance on 11 May 330 CE.' The new city was an imperial foundation; one of the first institutions to be created for it was a Senate, modelled on the traditional aristocratic assembly of Rome. But it was not yet a capital. Constantine would make his home there for most of the years that remained to him. It was, of course, in Greek that the emperor named his city: Konstantinoupolis, or Constantinople, meaning ‘city of Constantine’. For the first time ever, and almost by accident, the Greek-speaking world had acquired a political centre, one that would remain unchallenged for almost eight centuries and would never entirely lose its symbolic resonance for Greeks thereafter.

Was the Justinian reign (legislative reforms, plague, destructive wars, spreading Christianity but further deepening differences with Church of Rome, just to name a few) transformative enough to consider the end of one state and the creation of new one? Was Heraclius first of a line of Greek-speaking emperors the beginning of a new empire? I am not surprised that another author presents an additional theory, i.e., the Roman state ended in 1204. Irrespective of the different theories as to when Roman state ended before the fall (at least we can agree on the end, 1453) and when or whether there was a different entity, i.e., Byzantium, our task here is to find how to best to call its citizens. I much in favor of Byzantines. I am not sure what you mean by overrule "Byzantine" which is for the subject? Note much of my search in the names, note that Byzantium is also the appropriate name of Byzantine Empire, the latter carries a lot of baggage (one of the few things I agree with Kardellis) not to mention that is by far more popular, see Google Ngram (but this is another topic).

The "Byzantine Greek" is used in the literature in different ways (as this is complex topic) to differentiate

• between Greeks at different eras (ancient Greek, Byzantine Greeks, modern Greeks)
• among the Byzantines by ethnic/language origin (Greeks, Latins, Hellenized Syrians, Armenians, etc)
• by religion/culture, i.e., before and after the fall, "Byzantines Greeks" were the Byzantines who were not ready give up their identity and assimilated by the Italians or other European cultures. This of course created friction with the European humanists (as well with other Byzantines who were willing to accept the Church of Rome) during the Renaissance and later. Despite the immediate identity shock in 1204, not everyone was immediately open to accept their Hellenic past with open arms. Thus, "Byzantine Greeks" were those who insisted in the recent revival of Hellenic past identity.

Below I provide a few of the sources on "Byzantine Greeks" or/and talk about the social identity split Roman vs Greek. There are more but these I found intriguing.

• For the transition period around the fall (1453) and the search of identity the book is: Han Lamers (2015) Greece Reinvented Transformations of Byzantine Hellenism in Renaissance Italy
  • From the same author from his PhD (available here).

    Still, the works of these displaced Byzantine Greeks have never been explored in detail in order to understand with what strategies they identified themselves with the ancient Greeks and why they did so in the first place. By trying to answer these questions, this study hopes to contribute to our understanding of the sudden emergence of distinctive Greekness after Byzantium, especially in the Italian diaspora. Its intention is not to rewrite the complex history of Greekness after Byzantium, but to reframe it. It does so by finding an alternative to two extreme views on ‘Greek identity’. The one extreme is represented by the nationalist perspective on the Greek diaspora. From this vantage point, the Byzantine Greek intelligentsia in Italian exile present the very first example of ‘a modern sense of nationality’.2 The other extreme is represented by modernist approaches to Greek identity that try to correct the perennialist and essentialist assumptions of Greek nationalism and argue that Greek identity is the exclusive product or ‘construction’ of eighteenth-century nationalism.

  • Already before 1453 the Greeks had been divided over various Italian, Ottoman and even different ‘Byzantine’ domains, while the fear of cultural assimilation was particularly strong after 1453. It resonates, for instance, in the poetry of Manilius Rallus invoked above. Even so, to properly understand their rejection of Roman Byzantium we must not see their self-representation as Hellenes in Italy outside the context of what Richard Jenkins called the ‘external moment’ of identification, i.e. the way the dominant Italian target-audience identified and evaluated the Byzantines (see the Introduction, p. 17-18). The Latins welcomed the Byzantines in Italy as Greeks and not as Romans. From the ninth century onwards, westerners had called the Byzantines Greeks, long before they themselves eventually embraced the label in the fifteenth century (see esp. chapter 2, pp. 57-65). Therefore, while Byzantine Greekness was a radical innovation in Byzantium, it was the normal way to frame the Byzantines in the West. The application of the Greek rubric to the Romans of the East had originally been a means to deny the Byzantines’ claim to Roman authority. But from the end of the fourteenth century onwards, Italian humanists began to see the Byzantine Graeci also in more positive terms, namely as the representatives of ancient Greek language and literature from whom they wanted to learn. This enabled Byzantines to exploit to their own advantage the Greek rubric assigned to them in the West.

• The division of Byzantines/Romans into "Byzantine Greeks" is very apparent in the late era of Byzantium, but it also apparent in mid-period (Justinian period) as another identity crisis took place during the Gothic War. Amory may not explicitly use the term, but the meaning is there:
  • Patrick Amory Ostrogothic Italy p. 180

    Totila revived civilitas ideology in a letter to the senate in 544, also denouncing the Byzantines as "Greeks."133 In his anxiety, Justinian sent Belisarius back to Italy in the same year with a message for the inhabitants of Ravenna. Addressing both Goths in Ravenna and "Roman" soldiers, Belisarius offered to right the wrongs committed by both sides. The result, however, was that "not one of the enemy came over to him, either Goth or Roman."
    As Italians flocked to Totila's side, Procopius's rhetoric breaks down interestingly. By his own definitions, how could there be "Goths" in Ravenna, a city controlled by the Byzantines? How could there be "Romans" who were not on the Byzantine side? The context makes it clear that these "Goths" and "Romans" were Italian soldiers and civilians who did not favor the Byzantine reconquest. In this brief moment of crisis, we can see groups in Italy more clearly, as they had been defined before the arrival of Justinianic ideology.

  • Patrick Amory Ostrogothic Italy p. 313

    The eventual failure of Justinian and his successors to retain the allegiance of Africa and Italy and finally, after Phocas, the Balkans, was partly a result of the inadequacy of imperial ideology to draw together the varied elites of new frontiers into a single homogeneous cultural, religious and political culture determined by Constantinople.

  • Patrick Amory Ostrogothic Italy p. 320

    These Goths had become regional in a larger sense: they were by three definitions the army of Italy.17 For Procopius, Italy contained Romans and Goths, or Romans (Byzantines), Italians and Goths. But in his geographical survey, the Italians consisted of a variety of undistinguished provincial groups znd gentes: Calabrians, Apulians, Samnites, Piceni, Bruttii, Lucani, Veneti, Ligurians and Albani, the Tuscan peoples, Carnii and Norici. Beyond these were Siscii and Suevi, Dacians and Pannonians — and all these groups were ruled by the Goths. ...
    On top of these local allegiances, the changing and competing ideologies of secular and ecclesiastical institutions offered the history-laden names of classical ethnography as forms of cohesion. Paradoxically, the propagation of ethnographic ideology fostered not cohesion, but disruption. The competition of ideologies of community culminated in the twenty-years devastation of Italy that we call the Gothic Wars, during which individuals — who at their hearts held allegiance to their families, properties and professions — were forced constantly to choose changing higher loyalties, and to suffer for their choices. By the year 600, Italy was divided, but not between Goths and Romans. Both groups had effectively disappeared.

    This is a revealing conclusion, the Italo-Romans started not only cease to recognize the Eastern part as Roman but also they did recognize themselves as such, i.e., Roman. Note that Byzantines also viewed themselves as not quite Roman either, they were not quite ready to admit for all sort of reasons.
• So if you are asking tertiary sources, such as encyclopedias then no, they use predominately Byzantines (no Romans, Rhomaoi, or Romaoi). If you are asking books that have overarching themes, yes, but this covers one of the above categories. For example, Arnold Toynbee provides a discussion on the different phases of the Greek civilization (182 instances of "Byzantine Greeks" I only provide a couple, but has whole chapter about the Byzantine Greeks on what they inherit/kept and what not from Hellenic Greeks, e.g., things that did not kept: pagan religion, the concept of polis, etc)
  • Arnold Toynbee The Greeks and Their Heritages p. 5

    Like the Jews and the Chinese, the Greeks have made images of their own past that do not correspond to the picture seen by emotionally uninvolved archaeologists and historians. The Hellenic Greeks idealized the war-lords of the Mycenaean phase of Greek history. The Byzantine Greeks were adulators of the language and the style of Hellenic Greek literature from the Homeric poems to the fourth-century-B.c., Attic orators inclusive, and they admitted into this literary canon the neo-Atticists of the age of the Roman principate and the Atticizing Greek Christian Fathers. The Byzantine Greeks also treasured the East Roman Empire, an institution which was their ultimate political heritage from the Hellenic Age. The Modern Greeks have not only idolized the Hellenic ‘classical’ Greek literature; they have idealized the whole of the Hellenic Greek civilization in all its facets, and they have felt a nostalgia for this image of it which they have created. At the same time, the Modern Greeks have cherished —or did cherish until at least as recently as 1922 — the ambition of resuscitating the East Roman Empire and making Constantinople its capital once again.

  • Arnold Toynbee The Greeks and Their Heritages p. 24-25

    The Hellenic Greeks’ good fortune in escaping these potential legacies from their Mycenaean Greek predecessors stands out in contrast to the untoward effects of the corresponding legacies from the Hellenes on the fortunes of the Byzantine and the Modern Greeks. The Byzantine Greeks did inherit from the Hellenes the Roman imperial palace at Constantinople, the Diocletianic-Constantinian system of administration, the Hellenic Greek alphabet, and —preserved in this alphabet, like flies in amber— the pre-Christian Hellenic classics, the Christian scriptures written in the Attic koine, and the works of the Greek Christian fathers written in the same form of Hellenic Greek. The cumulative weight of the Byzantine Greeks’ Hellenic heritage was crushing. It was an initial handicap that goes far towards explaining the Byzantine Greek civilization’s premature collapse. Conversely the Hellenic Greeks’ escape from a comparable Mycenaean Greek legacy goes far to explain the Hellenic civilization’s relative success. ...
    The Byzantine Greeks have certainly been depreciated unduly by the modern Western representatives of a rival Christian civilization, and also by some Modern Greeks, who have wished to dissociate themselves from their own Byzantine past in order to identify themselves with their modern Western contemporaries.

• Another book that talks about the issue of Greekness in Crusaders: George E. Demacopoulos Colonizing Christianity p. 11-12

  All scholars of “Byzantium” are confronted with the challenge of what to do about political and cultural nomenclature when they write about their field. As is generally well known, the “Byzantines” never self-described as Byzantines and they only very rarely referred to themselves as Greeks, Graeci. The inhabitants of the medieval Eastern Roman Empire always described themselves as Romans. The Latin term “Greek,” Graeci, was typically employed by Westerners as a derogatory term designed to undermine the East Roman claim of Roman-ness. For a variety of reasons well explained by Anthony Kaldellis in his magisterial Hellenism in Byzantium, the Byzantines began to (re-)appropriate the category of “Hellene” at roughly the same time as the crusades, but the reader should understand that their appropriation of “Hellene” was, to their understanding, very different from the Latin smear of Graeci.
  Today, most scholars as well as popular opinion regularly use the terms “Byzantine” and “Byzantium” to refer to the post-Constantinian Eastern Roman Empire. Those words were first routinely employed by nineteenth-century Western European historians who sought to differentiate the “real” Roman Empire from what was, to their minds, an Eastern and Christian aberration of empire that came afterwards. The decision to introduce those new terms was not an apolitical one, nor was it innocent. But it remains the common parlance. And, for that reason, this book will repeatedly use the words Byzantine and Byzantium, except in those instances when it becomes important to convey the precise claim of Roman-ness in a cited text or when there is a need to differentiate between those Greek-Romans who were loyal to the successor state of Epiros from those who were loyal to the successor state of Nicaea. Moreover, for convenience, I will routinely employ the word Greek and Greeks to refer to the indigenous population in the region. I, of course, do so in a nonderogatory fashion, similar to the way that it is used in contemporary speech.

A.Cython(talk) 04:52, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Overall, the literature predominatly uses Byzantines and Byzantium to describe the people and the state (Google Ngram demonstrate this for both terms). The reason is to separate the classical Romans (pagan Latins in Italy) from late period (Christian Greek-speaking in Greece+Asia Minor coasts). While there is debate when and how this crossover took place, it does not affect the established naming convention used in literature. I fail to see any reason to deviate from this consensus based on WP policies. As for Byzantine Greeks it largely depends on whether the current article needs to be ethnographic neutral, i.e., if so then the new article is warranted to cover this aspect of literature. A.Cython(talk) 14:48, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

I appreciate you sharing these sources.

No debate on the appropriateness for a Byzantines article as a general article. But the content of this article matches Byzantine Greeks as proposed.

My questions:

• Do you propose "Byzantine Greeks" to be the common name for the Romaioi or Byzantines to be the common name for the Romaioi?
• Are you advocating the "Byzantine Greeks" article starts at the Gothic wars and ends in 1453?
• Patrick Amory aligns with Sviatoslav Dmitriev that an anonymous editor posted December 5th. This also aligns with Kadellis position that Romans became an ethnic group around this time, which is defined as when an outside group treated them differently. Based on your views of Kaldellis, would this make it a minority view? As Stouraitis is the only other scholar I've read discussing identity (and as a challenge to Kaldellis), and he defines 1204 as when the citizens became an ethnic group (once the state collapsed, which aligns what Watts says), do we treat that as the majority view?

Biz (talk) 20:28, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Byzantines could be the title and Byzantine Greeks and Romaioi given as alternative names. The debate about when exactly they became an ethnic group could be a section of the article. Aetolorhode (talk) 23:48, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

I suppose we could do that, and then make the decision to split the content if it exceeds 10,000 words.

Personally, I think we need at least two articles due to the notability of the topics: the people during a time in history and the origins of the modern Greek nation. But due to the complexity and risk of wp:or, one article is safest. I just really don't like that we continue the problem of making a periodisation adjective a noun. Biz (talk) 06:20, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your questions, I hope my answer clarify the intentions.

1. My understanding of the initial blueprint was that the current article (former Byzantine Greeks and now Rhomaioi) is to be a general article (starting from 330 and ending in 1453) with no ethnographic emphasis, i.e., treating the Latin and Greek-speaking populations on equal basis, along with any other ethnic groups (Armenians, Syrians, etc). However, in the literature, there is an extensive body of work that focus on the identity tension in the Greek-speaking population group which identified more closely with Byzantine label in the late part of empire. Thus, if Byzantines is general and ethnic agnostic then a secondary article is warranted to cover (in a more narrow and specific way) this identity crisis that the forth crusade triggered. If on the other hand, we threat the Byzantines article as if it is equivalent/synonymous to Byzantine Greeks then there is no reason for such an article to exist, however, my understanding the general article was to be ethnic agnostic.
2. If there will be an article called Byzantine Greeks then its main focus will be 1204 as this was the epic center of the identity crisis. However, to understand the main subject a background section is needed, describing the various transformations since the beginning, i.e., religion (pagan to Christianity), administrative (loss of polis but gain of Roman citizenship), etc. The Gothic War was another identity crisis, as Amory describes it, but my understanding it was less shocking than the 1204. It made them question what it means to be a Roman without Rome and its former Latin people, but it was not shocking enough to start openly rejecting their own identity. Thus, the Gothic War will be part of the background necessary to understand the underlying identity tension.
3. It definitely looks that the loss of Italy made the remaining Byzantine Empire more ethnographically cohesive (and even more with the loss of Egypt later on) but this entails substantial nuances that I do not think it has been digested in the academic literature. If it indeed made them an ethnic group how would you call them? Romans or Greeks? We already had the early classical Romans as an ethnic group so they cannot be Romans. They were not Greeks in either modern or ancient sense so what the heck were they? I do not think there is a good answer in literature. The Byzantine Greeks is about the struggle of the Greek-speaking population in relation to their Roman-ness and their ancient past, having ups and downs. Of course, after the fall in 1453, it became part of nationalism and the foundation in *later* centuries for the creation of the modern Greek state, including the uneasy relation of modern Greeks with their Byzantine past (as a quote above described). Thus, the question of nationalism should enter only after the fall of Constantinople not before. I hope this clarifies things a bit. A.Cython(talk) 23:49, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

If Byzantines is going to refer to the whole population and not the main ethnolinguistic group (i.e. the Greek speakers), then it would be identical to the population of the Byzantine empire. I think that most scholars when they refer to the Byzantines, they mean the dominant/majority population of the empire that was greek speaking, christian and self-identified as Rhomaioi. The point of renaming Rhomaioi to Byzantines was to align with the most common name, not confusing again the whole population with the dominant group. Rhomaioi could as well as Byzantines mean every other inhabitant of the empire, if we start examining again this path. Aetolorhode (talk) 00:17, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Byzantines is meant to be the whole population but not focusing on distinctions of the different populations but rather the relation of the citizens with the state, religion etc. The Greek-speaking population was not dominant population in the whole period of, as defined in WP, period from 330-1453. Say were they in 450? So either we are going to sweep under the carpet the Latin population for those years and accept the Byzantines are equivalent to Byzantine Greeks (as it is done in the majority of the literature per admission of Kardellis) or ignore the dominant Greek-speaking population and instead describe their identity in a separate article. My understanding is the others want to avoid the former and thus my suggestion for the latter. A.Cython(talk) 00:49, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Even in 450 (and earlier) the greek language was dominant in the eastern roman empire, and the greek speaking populations the majority in the capital and the areas around her at least (anatolia, thrace, etc). Aetolorhode (talk) 08:42, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

not in Italy, not in Africa, not in Spain, not in France, etc A.Cython(talk) 13:45, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

to be exact, none of these was part of the eastern roman empire in 450 AD. Aetolorhode (talk) 14:02, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

You know what i mean, before the invasion of the barbarians and the fall of the western part but after 330. The map clearly shows that there were more regions than just Greece and Asia Minor if we based the definition of Byzantine Empire as 330 AD. It might be a short period, but a period it was. The Greek speaking regions started to have a political voice with the move of the capital, yes, but started to become dominant with the loss of the west and egypt, which is why most historians start to use the term Byzantine more comfortably at Justinian'regn, i.e., the last Roman Emperor.

The administrative divisions of the Roman Empire in 395, under Theodosius I.

A.Cython(talk) 15:04, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

I understand what you mean yes, you are right that between 330 (new capital in the East) and 640 AD (loss of Syria and Egypt by Arabs) the Eastern Roman Empire was more multi-ethnic than it was after that. Additionally in Egypt and Syria Greek was the language of the majority only in the coastal and urban areas, not inland. Many military elits and emperors were native Latin-speakers from Balkans rather than native Greek-speakers up until Justinian. However the dominant language especially in areas like literature, church etc was already Greek, and the majority of the population in the capital and the surrounding areas were Greek-speakers as Justinian himself admits. Besides that, I do not know if the best term for describing these Greek speakers during this period as well as later is Rhomaioi or Byzantines. I know for sure that Byzantines is the more common name. Aetolorhode (talk) 15:26, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

With that said, I don't know if the current name Rhomaioi (even though less common) is better than Byzantines after all. I do not suggest any move. However I do not support the Romaioi (Byzantine period) and Romaioi (Ottoman period) combined proposition. Aetolorhode (talk) 15:33, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

A.Cython(talk) 06:05, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

If you do not support Romaioi (Byzantine period), no problem. But it creates a new problem of time-bounding, but let me explain this first.

If we have one article, it has to be Byzantines.

If we have two articles, and call the Romaioi generally as Byzantine Greeks, we need something that can support this otherwise we are engaging in WP:OR. I've yet to see any scholarship that mentions Romaioi interchangeably with the Byzantine Greeks.

That said, I'm open to having an article called Byzantine Greeks as a way to distinguish Byzantines who became more adopting of a revised (previously pagan) Hellenes identity, as this is well documented in the scholarship. But by mapping Romaioi to Byzantine Greeks, we are also making a judgement call that the Romaioi before that were Christian Greek-speaking Roman citizens different from what they later became, and that now just gets confusing given they had the same name and the scholarship debates it still.

Confusing as it is, that's the conservative thing to do. But what do we call those Romaioi in the middle period? Further, what do we call the Greek-speaking pagan Roman citizens between 212 and 330 who were also Romaioi? (And to make the point clear, were the original Romaioi with a Hellenes identity and long before any historian uses the term Byzantine) Biz (talk) 17:51, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

How about this.

• Byzantines for the current article with no ethnographic emphasis (Latin Greek, etc speaking populations all together)
• Byzantine Greek identity crisis for the secondary article to further narrow down the focus and differentiate from Byzantines as the premise of the article is not about a population group such as Byzantines.
  • note the definition of Byzantines by Stewart, M.E., Parnell, D.A. and Whately, C., 2022. The Routledge handbook on identity in Byzantium. New York: Routledge p. 199-200: Byzantine identity was then somewhat more than “Greek” and at the same time something else than simply “Roman” (in its classical context); this also the basis of accusation of Kardellis i.e. Byzantine is used to strip their Romanness just as political opponents did by calling them Greeks (Romanland, p. xii). Is Kardellis wrong here? Is this not interchanging with Byzantine Greeks, then I will start consider your position as non-constructive as it appears to advance WP:POV
  • I am forced to repeat this quote: same book page 210 note 24 Kaldellis reminds us of the “fundamental” confusions that arise from the use of Byzantine as a term, but I will use the term, notwithstanding these issues. Kaldellis, Romanland, ix–xiii. Dmitriev carefully sets out contemporary perceptions of what divides Greek and Roman. He observes that: “In cultural terms, therefore, the Byzantines were “Greeks,” as opposed to the Latin-speaking “Romans.” In political terms, however, the Byzantines were “Romans.”
  • the identity is related also with the Greek-speaking population being trapped (allied at times with both only to be betrayed) between Latins and Bulgarians (1204-1261) and later between Ottomans and Latins.

There is no WP:OR here, the OR that I see is the insistance of Romanizing everything beyond what is described in the literature. The alternative would be only Byzantines and I will add all the literature on Byzantines Greek identity. A.Cython(talk) 19:17, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

You're calling my usage of the self-desigination and what many (see my survey above, but not all, I agree) scholars call them as WP:OR. I'm not pushing, right now, that we call the article title Romaioi.

The Romaioi had three phases of existence in this period of history: pagan Greek-speaking ("Hellenes") Roman citizens from 212 to Justinian at latest, Christian citizens thereafter, and then post 1204 citizens who adopted Hellenes again along with Roman and Christian identities. The scholarship debates they were Greek and ethnically Roman (similar concepts but different names) from Justinian's period (at earliest) to 1204 (at latest). What we need to do is respect these issues. Nothing I've said there is WP:OR.

It does not make sense to create three separate articles like that and you are proposing in creating a second article which incorporates two of those three which I'm trying to support despite you trying to cut me down every time.

Unless there is tertiary scholarship that directly calls the Romaioi "Byzantine Greeks" in the same breath, this is called WP:SYNTH. This is not me trying to be difficult, this is me trying to ensure we don't repeat poor practices, again. Byzantine Greek identity crisis I have not read anything that states this or would support an article.

With all that aside, and until we can do that, this is how I see it now. Byzantines and/or a second article which is what Ashmedi suggested Byzantine Identity and which your source uses are the only options. Aetolorhode supports one article, and given we may not have enough content for two articles and the issues that get in the way of all this, maybe one article is best. Which is Byzantines. We should also have Byzantine People as a redirect so that it mimics the article Roman people (despite Romans being that topics common name but it's used as a disambiguation page like we currently have Byzantines). Biz (talk) 01:33, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Ethnically Roman? No that's WP:OR big time as the quotes clearly show

• Definition of ethnically: in a way that relates to someone's ethnicity (= the fact of belonging to a large group of people with a shared culture, language, history, set of traditions, etc.)

They were Greek in terms of culture, language, traditions, etc. Sure they may changed religion, but Christianity was not a Roman feature. They may have lost the polis, but this does not change them to anything beyond administration wise. Paying taxes does not change your identity (again this is radical position used by only Kardellis, leading Mark Antony or even Cleopatra to be Eastern Roman, as Theodoropoulos criticized him). Read again read the quotes that I provided. Your statement is in direct contradiction with them! Only in political terms they were Roman, and this is debatable for the mid and late periods. Now I am not saying that it was a Greek state/nation or anything like this but saying that they were just Romans is worse than saying they were Greeks. Because you imply to the casual reader that they were the same as the Latins.

Sources have been provided and there is a lot more as the term "Byzantine Greeks" beat in popularity in Google Ngram both Romaioi and Rhomaioi. No tertiary source that I know defines the Byzantines as Romaioi and the term is used to distinguish them from the classical Romans. Moreover the explicitly defined as more that "Greek" and other than "Roman". Why? Because they were different as the quote explicitly say! There is no WP:SYTH from my part. So far all I keep hearing the national sensitivities of Bogazicili (who had a track record of damaging articles even beyond this one) all over again. You have violated consensus to move the article on a title by pushing a view that is not accepted in the mainstream literature (it is predominantly Byzantines, not Romans, Romaoi, or Rhomaioi). You barely provide any evidence on anything other than circular logic, confusing terms, and pushing Kardellis fringe theory which is not only not accepted, but he unprofessionally attacked the Byzantine establishment for not listening to him. So no we go by the mainstream. And yes a tertiary source was provided (one which takes the whole historical arc) but you neglect its existence. If you do not read the presented evidence then why are you here? A.Cython(talk) 02:22, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

I'm wondering if you have read what this current article covers under identity. https://academic.oup.com/past/article/270/1/3/8003752?login=false. If you read this article, it's clear this is a debate about ethnicity (and he proposed the middle period) which is a concept that has a claim to land and not just about common language and culture.

• "The Kaldellis–Stouraitis debate essentially forms a field-specific iteration of the wider modernism debate in historiography." with the accompanying Note 14: "Averil Cameron points out that this debate is conditioned by Greek nationalist ideology’s construction of ‘Byzantium’ as the medieval Greek nation-state, with Stouraitis completely rejecting any possible basis for this, and Kaldellis almost reproducing the nationalist vision in negative, with Romanness (rather than Greekness) as ‘the most ancient national identity in all of history’."
• the consensus is that ethnicity is a modern idea with scholars reluctant to say it exists before the 18th century and Pohl (who Stouraitis is affiliated with, and wrote about Roman identity) calling it dangerous before the 8th century (I'm suspect of his bias however). Due to the Greek revolution in the 19th century, scholars have to acknowledge that ethnicity exists for Greeks but the debate has not settled on this when it started. Hence why this topic is such a sensitive one right now, not just with us but with scholars.

Rename this page Byzantines and redirect every other name here. At different times, all of us have said this is the solution, including myself recently. We can cover the topics you want still there. But a second article is too much work to make it work, and you've lost my interest to keep discussing it. Biz (talk) 04:16, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

A single paper does not reflect the mainstream, and yes I read it long time ago. A professor or a debate between two professors does not either. We are talking about the academic literature of the last 100 years, not transient fluctuations in academic opinions. No evidence has been presented that Kardellis is part of the mainstream. Acknowledged yes, accepted no (everyone keeps using Byzantine). But you avoided the issue, if ethnicity as a concept is alien for the Greeks for the period (I can easily accept this) then how come you said "ethnic Romans"? Is this even worse, especially after 282 where anyone irrespective of identity (Latin, Greek, Slav, Syrian, etc) to be Roman? You do not wish to discuss this but I have to clean up, right!? Fine. A.Cython(talk) 04:49, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

With your agreement, I will rename this article back to the pre-consensus state Byzantine Greeks. My attempt to resolve this debate just wasted everyone’s time and I apologise for that. Biz (talk) 06:42, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Let's move the current article to Byzantines. We shall see with the Byzantine Greeks later; I have lost the appetite to write it. My apologies as well if my tone was (way) off, but this discussion has been dragging for a year now and it desperately needs a closure. A.Cython(talk) 06:48, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Requested move 3 April 2026

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Consensus is that "Byzantines" is the common name and primary topic. (closed by non-admin page mover) {{GearsDatapacks|talk|contribs}} 08:05, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

---

Rhomaioi → Byzantines – We have discussed this to the death and tried all different variants (Rhomaioi, Romaoi, Eastern Romans, etc.). None of them appear to satisfy the WP:COMMONNAME as the Google Ngram results. Moreover, the latest literature on Byzantine Studies continues to use the "Byzantine" as the primary descriptor for the Christian (and Greek-speaking) Romans to separate from the pagan Latin-speaking Romans of the classical age. The only hesitation for Byzantines is that it is a disambiguation page. However, the "Byzantines" term is predominately used to describe the medieval Christian Romans rather than the citizens of the ancient Greek city (Byzantion, not Byzantium). Just open the Google Books or Google Scholar and search for "Byzantines", the results predominately show that the medieval Romans (Byzantines) is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Include literature dedicated on the subject:

• The Byzantines By Averil Cameron 2009
• The Byzantines Editor Guglielmo Cavallo 1997 A.Cython(talk) 20:42, 3 April 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 13:43, 11 April 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 07:36, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

• Weak oppose. I support what A.Cython has said but this is complex. The challenge is that we need to look at current Byzantine Studies and what the consensus there now is. The latest scholarship has made clear that "Byzantines" is no longer an uncontested neutral label, and to use it as the article title is to adopt one side in an active scholarly debate. Where there is a live scholarly dispute of significance, Wikipedia should not resolve it by selecting one side's preferred terminology as the title. It should instead adopt the most neutral and descriptive formulation available. WP:NPOV > WP:Commonname.
  • Jonathan Shepard, as editor of the 2025 volume Revisiting the Byzantine Commonwealth: Nodes, Networks, and Spheres and which has chapters by many leading Byzantists, writes: "Since ‘Byzantine’ is merely the name concocted by a sixteenth century scholar, Hieronymus Wolf, to characterize a ‘civilization’ he deemed inferior to the ancient world, its validity as a term is open to question. Understandably, then, some of this volume’s authors prefer to write of East Rome and East Romans."
  • Paul Magdalino, one of the most senior Byzantinists and a contributor to that volume, has separately written that "Kaldellis’ idea of Romanland is a big advance on previous conceptions of Byzantium, both those which saw it as a universal, multi-ethnic empire and those which saw it as the precursor of the Modern Greek state. The Kaldellis thesis is rapidly becoming the new standard paradigm. As such, however, it is in danger of becoming an obstacle to a properly nuanced understanding of the Roman identity of medieval Greek Romania, in which, I shall suggest, Byzantine identity had a real existence, in addition to being an indispensable term of reference for the modern scholar."
  • Averil Cameron, another leading Byzantinist, writes in the same 2025 volume: "The Byzantines did indeed call themselves Romans ... many historians therefore now prefer the term ‘East Roman’, or even simply ‘Roman’, though for obvious reasons the term ‘Roman’ usually needs to be qualified, as in ‘medieval Roman’, ‘Eastern Roman’, or the like."

I would like to also point out Byzantist Warren Treadgold in December 2025 stated he is against the change the terminology as there is no good reason to change and which is the opposite to what Anthony Kaldellis has said in his 2024 book "The Case for East Roman Studies" and why the profession is now erupting. But equally significant, in the parallel discipline of Theology, Derek Krueger has written "Byzantium, or Rather , East Rome" and which shows this is not a fringe debate.

Given evident scholarly disagreement, the most neutral title would be a descriptive compromise that avoids taking sides, such as Byzantine people, People of the Byzantine Empire, or Romans (Byzantine people). Such a title would acknowledge the conventional English term or the inhabitants' political classification without endorsing either interpretation as uniquely correct. To be clear, this is for the article title; for the article body, I would like to see East Romans, Byzantines and Romaioi all used as a matter of stylistic variety and may also be useful to imply the changes over time we all agree happened in the early, middle and late periods. Biz (talk) 02:56, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

If one wants to maintain neutrality, then it should be reflective of the academic consensus of how the term is used and not by invoking atypical or secondary terms to replace or sideline the established primary term. Biz's muddling the waters by relying on statements taken out of context rather than having an objective perspective. Google Ngram results clearly show that "East Roman" or any other variant are still far away from being the dominant terms. While historians acknowledge different terms (maybe because the reviewer make too much fuss or because they have to write something), the last time I checked Byzantine Studies is called "Byzantine Studies" and not "East Roman Studies". Not to mention the particular term (Eastern Roman), not only carries the more baggage than "Byzantine", it was described by Theodoropoulos review:

As seen, Kaldellis does not merely call for the replacement of the terms ‘Byzantium’ and ‘Byzantine’ with a term that acknowledges the Romanness of the empire. He suggests that we abandon the very concept of Byzantium altogether. In his opinion, the concept of Byzantium as a distinct state and civilization which emerges during the reign of Constantine, serves only those narratives that undermine its Romanness. To build a new field of East Roman Studies that will cover at least the fifteen centuries between Augustus and the fall of the last East Roman polities in the 15th century, Kaldellis deconstructs ‘Byzantium’. He attacks all those elements that Byzantinists, for generations, have highlighted as differentiating Byzantium from the Ancient Roman empire, that is, Greek language and culture,Christianity, and Constantinople. Kaldellis argues that none of these was important enough to cause such a rupture as the concept of Byzantium suggests.
By lumping together as ‘East Romans’ individuals living in the Roman East in the 1st century CE and individuals living in the Ottoman empire in the 17th century, one perhaps over emphasizes continuity based on the continuous usage of ‘Roman’ as a self-descriptive ethnonym and ignores semantic variations. Being Roman meant different things to different people even at the same time, let alone in a period of over fifteen centuries. Insisting on the application of a single term for all these individuals might downplay changes, obscure diversity, and silence expressions of collective identities that do not serve this agenda. To elaborate on this: calling every author who wrote in Greek during, for example,the first three centuries CE, ‘East Roman’, and incorporating their work into a single corpus of East Roman literature creates the impression that the Greeks turned overnight into Romans. It will obscure the fact that the merge of Hellenism with Romanness took centuries to produce an ‘East Roman’ identity. Hans-Georg Beck suggested that this phenomenon was still in progress even as late as the 4th century CE, when the empire had become far more centralized than in the previous centuries (which Peter Brownh as described as a commonwealth of cities). The same goes for the various other ethne of the Roman East. (added emphasis)

There is no scholarly disagreement more than any other time. One can read the disagreement of continuity vs discontinuity schools of the thought in Continuity and Discontinuity in Byzantine History (1982) by Alexander Kazhdan and Anthony Cutler, which is one of the few studies that provides intelligent arguments and contrary to Kaldellis position, which as Treadgold said lacks evidence and arguments. Perhaps we do live in strange times, where evidence does not matter and all it matters is double talks, provocateurism, and hyperbolic talk, some of which used to describe Kaldellis extreme positions. One review of his books] goes as far to describe one such position as dangerous and misleading. Theodoropoulos described him provocateur and called him out for (unproffesionally) lashing out to his colleagues. Confusing provocative talk with established position sets a very dangerous precedent. So far none of Kaldellis proposals have been adopted in literature (acknowledged yes by typically saying being wrong, adopted no) and "Byzantine Studies" remains Byzantine for now. It is not a fringe theory as in the flat earth beliefs, but it is a minority opinion not widely accepted (or as I have seen widely rejected). Entertaining such minor academic opinions with far-reaching consequences is dangerous as it affects on how we interpret a wide range of WP articles. So far all I have seen is only a wide rejection of this minority position held by a small number of eccentric/seek-controversy professors and the community is willing to entertain only to have something to write against.

Even the sources raised by Biz contradict or warn against Kaldellis positions as the statement Biz were taken out of context:

• Paul Magdalino
  • , however, it is in danger of becoming an obstacle to a properly nuanced understanding of the Roman identity of medieval Greek Romania, in which, I shall suggest, Byzantine identity had a real existence, in addition to being an indispensable term of reference for the modern scholar. (added emphasis)
  • It also fails to envisage the extent to which this Romania, including the elements that were most integral to its national identity, saw itself as a Rome with a difference – a difference which can best be described as Byzantine. (added emphasis)
  • , the Byzantios, since its critical edition by Ioannis Polemis, now stands revealed not only as the greatest rhetorical work of Theodore Metochites [(1270–1332)], but also as a major contribution to the urban image of what we may now unashamedly call Byzantine Constantinople. ... The Byzantios may thus be regarded as the first coherent statement of Byzantine identity. At the same time, it may be seen as the culmination of a Byzantine tradition of Byzantine studies, a local tradition of writing about Constantinople’s past that distanced the New Rome from the Old by justifying and contextualizing Constantine’s decision to upgrade the ancient Greek city of Byzantion into a new imperial capital. Magdalino effectively argues that Byzantine originates from Byzantines themselves. Calling them Romans (even though they called themselves Romans) obscures the issues causing confusion and damage just as Theodoropoulos warned.
  • What matters is that the Byzantine studies that invented Byzantine identity did not begin with Chalkokondyles, with Renaissance humanism, or with the Latin denial that the Greeks were really Romans. Byzantine studies existed long before the fifteenth century, and they were made in Byzantium. We do not need to refer to the one or the other by any other names. (added emphasis) Magdalino decisively refutes Kaldellis's position.

Even if we believe that there is a crisis (for which no evidence in Google Ngram, JSTOR, Google Scholar, or any other objective metrics presented beyond hot air statements authors make to sell books), which is a big if, then the change of title still needs to be made because per Google Ngram "Byzantines" beats "Rhomaoi" since the latter is so rare that does not even register in Ngram. No other alternative comes even close. "Eastern Romans" is ~180 times less popular than "Byzantines" and any suggestion to equate the two is a blatant violation of WP:NPOV. With a 180 times difference, one has to ask "what crisis"?

Tertiary sources has also been very clear on this. They use the "Byzantine" terminology as the primary descriptor. There are several sources, but I will provide only a few

• Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (1991)
• Encyclopedia of the Byzantine Empire" McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers (2015)
• The Routledge handbook on identity in Byzantium 2022 Michael Stewart
• The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies 2008 Oxford University Press
  • pp. 3-4 BYZANTINE Studies are concerned with the history and culture of what has come to be known as the Byzantine Empire, that is, the empire of East Rome. This was centred on the city of Constantinople (modern Istanbul), generally agreed to have been founded in 324 by the emperor Constantine to be the capital of the eastern portions of the Roman Empire [...] Its emperors and citizens thought of themselves as Roman (romaioi) while the inhabitants of Constantinople regularly referred to themselves as Constantinopolitans and their city as the Queen City. [...] 'Byzantium' and 'Byzantine' are now used freely to refer to all aspects of the East Roman Empire and its culture. As an extension of the Roman Empire Byzantium's structures of government and administration evolved seamlessly from those of the late Roman empire of the first centuries CE, with Latin initially the language of administration. The language of its literary culture, however, was Greek. From its inception Constantinople was a Christian city, whose bishop in time became the ecumenical patriarch of the Orthodox Church while the rituals and thought patterns of Christianity became all pervasive in the Byzantine way of life. The defining characteristics of this empire are thus that it was Roman in law and government, Greek in language and literary culture, and Christian in its religion. (emphasis added)

The "Byzantine" term remains for the time being the established primary descriptor and so on basis of WP:NPOV, WP:COMMONNAME, WP:DUE the change should take place. Does it have nuances that academics will continue to debate, absolutely, but this is not a reason to entertain minority academic opinions of eccentric professors. As Biz said For this topic, we go by the consensus of the Byzantists everything else is noise. A.Cython(talk) 06:57, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

Not to mentioned other editors have objected current title as I had warned Biz Talk:Rhomaioi#Ill-advised_move and it is against current policy Talk:Byzantine Empire/FAQ. A.Cython(talk) 07:51, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

Given that Biz broke his/her word again, this time with the "oppose vote" even though explicitly agreed to "Byzantines", I am notifying all previous participants. @Aetolorhode, Ashmedai 119, Khirurg, Piccco, and Buidhe: A.Cython(talk) 16:58, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

I welcome other editors and that is expected. I made it clear that "Revisiting the Byzantine Commonwealth: Nodes, Networks, and Spheres" that Ashmedia first introduced and that you selectively quoted, changes things.

I gave a rationale based on neutrality, specific scholars (including Averil who you used and updated her views), not on a specific name.

I'd ask you respect how a move process works: concise statements for support or opposition. Trying to dress me down for having an independent opinion, and your attempt to close the discussion as an involved editor with a verbose closing statement which was reverted suggests a lack of basic etiquette. Biz (talk) 18:37, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

@Biz Basic etiquette has been broken for months when you have persistently moving posts, ignoring evidence, and breaking consensus to advance a minority position brought last year from an editor with anti-Greek sentiments (just read the talk page of Anatolia). I regret to ever compromise to resolve the issue (not once but twice). You have said to this article needs peace and yet, you go again opposing resolution. How can any editor in future take your word for it? On top of that you misrepresent academic sources similar to the other disruptive editor just I have demonstrated (Paul Magdalino clearly refutes Kaldellis position and yet you present it as ambivelent). Given the track record that you have building, I had to clean up this mess. If I lacked etiquette, it is because I do not know to handle an experienced editor who games the system. A.Cython(talk) 18:50, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

Magdalino (2025) refutes Kaldellis' position that the field needs to be renamed as East Roman Studies. Introduces new evidence on how the term Byzantine started. But he repeatedly refers to the Byzantine Empire as Romania (10 times), and as Ashmedi first raised, "The Kaldellis thesis is rapidly becoming the new standard paradigm", which is a move away from the "universal, multi-ethnic empire and those which saw it as the precursor of the Modern Greek state". The emergent scholarship consensus that I've been observing is that the Roman/Byzantine Empire became a nation by the modern definition and which is what I think he is referring to. The reason this article is linked to the debate and about ethnicity is because when the nation collapsed in 1204, people held onto the identity still. Biz (talk) 19:18, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

Can you prove that "new standard paradigm" is not hot air statement added for dramatic effect in order to reject it himself later? If indeed this was a new paradigm this should had appeared in objected metrics. Google Ngram clearly show that this is just a hot air statement, as it shows that the scholars overwhelmingly continue to use "Byzantines", 180 times is no joke! Ignoring this over a single sentence is problematic.

The conclusion of Magdalino (2025) is really telling as it explicitly states his complete opposition to Kaldellis's position. Not only that it also establishes a link of "Byzantines" from the Byzantines themselves, making a genuine term instead of the artificial and clunky "East Roman" or even "Rhomaioi", who nobody uses (sorry one person). Thus, Kaldellis conspiracy theory, i.e., the Byzantine term was invented to strip the Romanness of these medieval people and it needs to change because it is supposedly a bad term/name, lacks evidence and an intellectual basis, as it was pointed by Treadgold. So no, I do not see any change of paradigm. Maybe in the future once the objective metrics are updated. We are not here to read tea leaves, we apply the WP guidelines whether we like it or not. A.Cython(talk) 19:37, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

Biz, I don't have an opinion on this move request but when terminology is disputed it's often impossible to adopt an "uncontested neutral label". (t · c) buIdhe 17:25, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

Using a boring article title solves the problem. If the debate is between "Byzantines" and "East Romans" then we obviously should not be using either. The reason I had hoped Rhomaioi/Romaioi would solve the problem is it's their actual name, so not an opinion. It's amusing to think we can't use it, it's like someone telling you it's forbidden to call someone their name. But the combination of Wikipedia policy, scholarship conflict, and editor behaviour makes this harder than it needs to be. Biz (talk) 18:49, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

A boring title is not a WP policy and solves no problems. Violating WP guidelines only creates more problems. Your continual insistence on this topic to advance a WP:POV is worrisome. A.Cython(talk) 18:53, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't know if this is helpful, but Byzantines is quite similar to Byzantine people. This is also the case for Romans and Roman people. I personally prefer Byzantines, but I don't think that there is a significant difference between the one side that prefers Byzantines and the other that prefers Byzantine people. The majority could decide the exact name between those two, if there are not specific guidelines by wp. Aetolorhode (talk) 19:05, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

Byzantines people is ok if there is a need for differentiation. However, there is no such need as far as I can understand. The citizens of the ancient city of Byzantion are typically called 'citizens of Byzantion' rather than Byzantines. In other words, the term 'Byzantines' appears in the literature to predominately describe the Christian (Greek-speaking) Romans. "Romans" needs such differentiation because it can mean many different things/people (citizens of Rome, the pagan Latin-speaking Romans, and the Christian Greek-speaking Romans, Roman/Byzantine other ethnic groups, etc). The former article title (Byzantine Greeks) helped to differentiate between the different kinds of Byzantines (religion and language-wise), as there were different kinds, e.g., Copts, Syrians, etc. Historians prefer the "Byzantines" over "Byzantine Greeks", the latter is still more popular than any Roman variant. So the only choice we have is "Byzantines" one which everyone agreed above, but Biz broke consensus (again) to keep a title that violates WP policies and admission of WP:OR: Using a boring article title. If it is too generic, then we go back to "Byzantine Greeks", but we agreed to go with "Byzantines" as there were no objections before Biz's breaking his/her word.A.Cython(talk) 17:31, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

Support. Byzantines is by far the most common name for the overwhelmingly Greek-speaking people of Byzantine Empire (Greek became the only official language at least since 7th century, while it was the lingua franca and greek culture was widespread since the Hellenistic and Roman era in the East). Rhomaioi/Romaioi should be mentioned as well as Eastern Romans and Byzantine Greeks. However the title is more logical to be the most common name both in scholarship and in general, i.e., Byzantines. The problem that Byzantines could also refer to the whole population is the same for every empire, Ottomans, Romans, etc. Aetolorhode (talk) 17:30, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

When the most common name in scholarship changes from Byzantines to East Romans for example, then they should also change position in the title (i.e., East Romans should be the title and Byzantines mentioned in the lead sentence). However, I think that for now it is the opposite. Aetolorhode (talk) 17:35, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree as nothing is set on stone. If ever there are objective metrics that demonstrate this, I will give my support. A.Cython(talk) 18:54, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

• Support WP:COMMONNAME. Wikipedia editors exist for readers, not the other way around. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:43, 5 April 2026 (UTC)
• Support per WP:COMMONNAME and move Byzantines to Byzantines (disambiguation). -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:49, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

Support. As Airship said, we are here to create the best experience for readers, not for ourselves. A title may avoid disputes between editors, but if using that title comes at the cost of reader experience then that doesn't matter. I was aware that there are people who do not like the use of the term "Byzantines" because they referred to themselves as "Romans", but I was completely unaware of this term "Rhomaioi", and I consider myself decently knowledgeable about this subject. I cannot imagine that the average reader would search for that instead of Byzantines and Eastern Romans. It's confusing and unnatural. There may be some academics fighting over the term "Byzantines" on technicalities, but the vast majority of people, and in turn the vast majority of our readers, do not consider using the term to be controversial or objectionable, if they even spare a thought for it at all. The WP:COMMONNAME is what it is, and we should go with it. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 00:21, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

@MaltazarianYour vote is appreciated. I would, however, like to understand your interpretation of the broader consensus. Per WP:COMMONNAME, editors often seem to skip over the second part: Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources.

For years, this article's talk page rejected Byzantines because it generalises one segment of the population. What is new is the scholarly dispute you mention, which seems to me less a technicality than a question of institutional bias. If a tertiary source, namely the editor of a major Oxford volume written and reviewed by leading Byzantinists, explicitly states that the term is inaccurate and that some historians have moved away from it, does that not satisfy the condition in WP:COMMONNAME that inaccurate names may be avoided despite being more common?

It certainly did not in 2022, when I reviewed the scholarship. But if a major 2025 volume still does not meet that threshold, then what would? Biz (talk) 05:09, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

The issue here is how deeply engrained within the average reader the term Byzantine is, and certainly more so than Rhomaioi. It's perhaps "inaccurate" in that the term's creation has a faulty basis (or it may not I'm not taking sides there), but when we say "ambiguous or inaccurate" we mainly mean that with regards to our readers. Byzantine is accurate insofar as it can only refer to one thing and it is the name that most people associate with that thing. The way I interpret it is that accuracy in this context is about being able to unambiguously and accurately identify the subject. The reason we can sometimes move away from the most commonly used name is because it might not only refer to a single thing, and then we can naturally disambiguate by choosing a less common, but still common, name. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 07:56, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

That makes sense. So combined with being the primary topic, this is also why we can call the people of this article (Greek-speaking, Chalcedonian Christian, Romans) Byzantines as they were the majority. However, are our readers now being affected by removing the disambiguation page of Byzantines, which ideally should list the other ethnic groups such as History of the Jews in the Byzantine Empire (now known as the Romaniote Jews), Armenians in the Byzantine Empire (now the Armenians) and others? Should we merge those previous articles mentioned into a new Byzantines? Biz (talk) 12:45, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

current Byzantines could just be renamed to Byzantines (disambiguation) ? Aetolorhode (talk) 15:09, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

• Support. Byzantines is clearly WP:COMMONNAME. Even though they called themselves Rhomaioi (“Romaeans”), there is no obligation to use endonyms on Wikipedia (for example, Germans call themselves Deutsch; Greeks call themselves Hellenes; Hungarians call themselves Magyars…). The subjects of this article are overwhelmingly known as the Byzantines. And there’s nothing wrong about this term: after all, they were ruled from Constantinople (originally called Byzantium), not from Rome. Auteuil-Passy (talk) 04:08, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

  @Auteuil-Passy As part of this vote, do you also support merging Armenians in the Byzantine Empire and History of the Jews in the Byzantine Empire as well? Or is it your view the "Greeks" are to be the article Byzantines and the other ethnic groups that identify in the modern day, to be listed on Byzantines (disambiguation) (with the proposed 'Greek' Byzantines)? FWIW The reason the article became Rhomaioi was due to a year-long neutrality debate of calling these people Byzantine Greeks the article's long-standing name, so the proposed change to Byzantines is also a change in scope. Biz (talk) 06:00, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

  Thanks a lot for your question.

  I don’t think we should merge those articles into this one, as they deal with specific ethnic and religious communities within the Byzantine Empire.

  I think it is acceptable to keep this article focused on the Greek-speaking population of the Byzantine Empire. In many contexts, especially historiography of non-Greek populations, phrases like “under the Byzantines” tend to foreground the ruling elite (i.e. the Greek-speaking population) much as “under the Ottomans” often brings to mind the Turkish-speaking ruling elite, even though both empires were, strictly speaking, multi-ethnic.

  That said, I personally think Byzantine Greeks was and remains the most precise title for this topic (compare Ottoman Turks). “Byzantine Greeks” is actually more common than “Rhomaioi” (as we can see on this Ngram).

  For now, however, I think “Byzantines” is the second best choice. “Rhomaioi” isn’t more precise as it also referred to imperial subjects regardless of ethnicity while also being far less recognizable to most readers and not in English.

  A possible hatnote with the title Byzantines could be: “This article is about Greek-speaking inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire. For other ethnic and religious groups within the empire, see Demography of the Byzantine Empire. For other uses, see Byzantines (disambiguation).” Auteuil-Passy (talk) 06:37, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

  Your response is much appreciated. I do want to flag some points.

  Your comparison to “Ottoman Turks” can also be framed another way: the ruling elite were Roman. "Under the Byzantines" reflects Roman control from Constantinople, not anything else (the educated spoke Greek in Rome well before the empire formed). Byzantine Romans, not Greek, may explain better how a "multi-ethnic" empire could produce dynasties from Armenians, Syrians, and others such as the Greeks that emerged as a modern ethnicity during this period. As you noted with Speros Vryonis, Rhomaios operated as a civilisational identity rather than an ethnic designation, while recent scholarship such as Bernard Stolte’s characterisation of Byzantine law as “Graeco-Roman” reinforces that what we are dealing with is a continuous civilisational synthesis, not a discrete people.

  The irony is that both the proposer and I actually prefer “Byzantine Greeks” over “Byzantines” as well, but for different reasons. My issue is recognising that “Byzantine” works best as it was originally intended: as an adjective, not a noun. It is a historiographical label marking a period of Graeco-Roman civilisation, not a self-contained people that just appeared and disappeared. Applying this as a principle is more accurate, balances neutrality, and better aligns with title policy as a whole. It also reduces the cognitive dissonance we place on readers. Biz (talk) 00:27, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

  Following the example you mentioned, the Macedonian dynasty may have had Armenian origins from the paternal side of its founder Basil I, but the first language of most of the emperors of this dynasty was Medieval Greek, the common language they used most of the time was Medieval Greek, while their religion was Chalcedonian christianity. (similar for the isaurian dynasty) And of course they self-identified as Romans (Rhomaioi in the official tongue of their state). I think an interesting question would be; most historians and people today in general, would refer or search for these emperors as Armenian, Roman, Byzantine Roman, Byzantine Greek, Byzantine Armenian or Byzantine emperors? Aetolorhode (talk) 12:29, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

References

Note of a recent RfC

The use of such extreme minority opinions in WP is against existing policies, especially in infoboxes and in titles as recent and relevant RfC pointed out: Insofar as article titles and infoboxes go, I doubt there's much objection to using "Byzantine" instead of "Eastern Roman"

To demonstrate with a different metric that Biz's argument of apparent crisis is just WP:POV (misreading of the sources) and WP:UNDUE, here is the academic output since 2025 (this the very latest scholarship) based on Google Scholar:

• Byzantines 4,190
• Byzantine Greeks 73
• Eastern Romans 69
• Rhomaoi 61
• Romaioi 57

There is no paradigm shift nor any special scholarship disagreement exists more than any other time and the numbers speak for themselves. A.Cython(talk) 17:37, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

It appears there is a misunderstanding. I have always accepted that "Byzantines" is the common name. The issue is WP:NPOVTITLE, which has equal importance as WP:COMMONNAME.

As a case in point, the move proposal mentions Averil Cameron (2009) and I showed that Averil Cameron (2025) said something very different. I probably would have missed @Ashmedai's introduction of Revisiting the Byzantine Commonwealth: Nodes, Networks, and Spheres, had it not been selectively cited later and this book makes all the difference. FWIW Ashmedai for years has advocated Byzantines in this talk but changed their view because of recent scholarship.

The issue is what Wikipedia should do when the academic field itself that writes about the topic is divided. Existing policy does not clearly address that situation. My opposing vote also proposed what could be said to be WP:NDESC, which recognises Wikipedia's role in reflecting a debate rather than resolving it by choosing either the traditional term or its challengers. Descriptive titles do more than jargon for readers, as well.

To be clear, because this seems to also be misunderstood, my objection to "Byzantines" is not the use of "Byzantine" itself (the actual common name). I have no issue with "Byzantine" in titles. It's the use of it, an adjective, as a noun, that I have long had issue with. The difference between "Byzantine people" and "Byzantines" may be lost on some people but it makes a world of difference to me. Enough to oppose this move. Biz (talk) 02:45, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

I fail to see the WP:NPOVTITLE claim as there are no evidence that the term "Byzantines" has currently a negative connotation (opinions of two centuries ago do not count) nor that it picks a side. I do not read the literature as divided. Divided means that a substantial fraction of academics goes to the other side based on some good arguments. There is only one provocateur professor seeking attention raising an allegation and everyone write papers and books, saying how wrong he is (good for citations, bad for history)! Besides for Kaldellis both Byzantine and Byzantines are equally bad, but per WP policies we do not care what he thinks. All it shows is how unified the community is against Kaldellis. Despite the noise, an unsubstantiated allegation (accompanied with extreme notions of calling a single-rule theocracy a republic) is just that, an allegation to be ignored (and perhaps even removed from the Byzantine Empire article as well as it is no place advertise opinions). As the latest quote by Treadgold, this allegation does not have any evidence and it is not supported by arguments, thus one can hardly even call it a side. Such division has not happened based on objective metrics presented above. If one wants to preserve neutrality, he/she write based on how the whole community approaches the issue leaving aside his/her opinions/feelings and filtering out extreme minority opinions, such as those of Kaldellis (IMO his opinions are not even noteworthy to be in WP).

My reading of Averil Cameron (2025) is as follows: at page 38, he offers a paragraph summarizing Kaldellis position from which you present the particular quote, however, it does not appear to be Cameron's position (in the range of pages available in Google Books preview, no access to the conclusions). He expresses his skepticism or even refutes parts of Kaldellis's thesis. I am not convinced that Ashmedai changed his mind beyond throwing some jabs at me, perhaps for cleaning some mess in some articles a year ago.

Unlike the need for "Roman people" where there are different kinds of Romans, Byzantines is more concise/narrow (relatively speaking) as it replaces "Romans" for one thing and one thing only: Christian/Greek-speaking Romans. While one can say that there are different kinds of citizens/ethnic groups within the empire just as under Roman Empire, i.e., Roman/Byzantine YYY, where (YYY=Jews, Syrians, Copts, etc), the term "Byzantines" is more esoteric (inward looking), making "Byzantine people" to appear superfluous and unnecessary. Moreover, the Bulgarian and Serbian citizens of the empire are not described in literature as Byzantine. So Byzantines tends to be an identity spreading from the capital and covers a subgroup of its citizens. The authors use "Byzantines" instead of "Byzantine people", i.e., Americans vs French people they prefer the former rather than the latter, Google Ngram.

Your (or anyone's) personal objections are irrelevant unless you demonstrate its use in the literature. For example, I still believe that Byzantine Greeks was and still is the best title, but I abide by the consensus build earlier. It is expected you to do the same. A.Cython(talk) 13:07, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

Averil Cameron is a she, which suggests you may not be very familiar with the more recent direction of her work, despite relying on her earlier writing in the move proposal which in it itself made a big splash in the scholarship but for different reasons.

In the abstract to Revisiting the Byzantine Commonwealth: Nodes, Networks, and Spheres, editor Jonathan Shepard writes that the very idea of commonwealth (alongside empire) is now highly contentious. So are the questions of whether ‘empire’ befits the polity at the heart of Obolensky’s study, and what to call its inhabitants: Byzantines. He then adds on p. 6 that some of this volume’s authors prefer to write of East Rome and East Romans”. Averil Cameron goes further still on p. 38, stating that many historians therefore now prefer the term ‘East Roman’, or even simply ‘Roman’.

This matters because:

• the volume brings together many leading Byzantinists writing today;
• Shepard is not merely a contributor but the editor, whose role is to synthesise the field, much as he did in the Cambridge History;
• published by Oxford and reviewed through an editorial process involving leading Byzantinists, including Cameron.

The issue I am raising is not whether “Byzantines” remains the common name. I have consistently accepted that it does. The issue is whether Wikipedia should use a title that, in a field where terminology is increasingly disputed, appears to endorse one side of that dispute. WP:COMMONNAME does not override WP:NPOVTITLE.

The proposed definition of “Byzantines” as “Greek-speaking Christian Romans” does not resolve the neutrality issue. In modern scholarship, “Byzantine” is not a fixed ethnoreligious category but a historiographical label tied to the Constantinople-centred empire, and its use remains contested. Narrowing the definition therefore risks reinforcing one interpretation rather than reflecting the range of views in the field.

The solution to be neutral is simple: don't use Byzantines, don't use East Romans. Ashmedai hasn't voted but he proposed Byzantines (Romans) which fails WP:QUALIFIER. But we can also be neutral by using both. If we can accept "Byzantine" is a periodisation scheme and is the common name as much as its derivative "Byzantines", then Romans (Byzantine Period) respects WP:PRECISION, WP:COMMONNAME, the wishes of this talk this last year before we go lost in policy compliance, and reflects what scholarship is aligned with. Both Ashmedai and I, and I believe you also, have a consensus on the ethno-significance of Greek and Christian in the Late period and a title like this still supports this with a section we can call Byzantine Greeks. Biz (talk) 17:35, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

It is not clear to me what specific disadvantages of Byzantines the proposition Romans (Byzantine Period) would improve/solve. Romans is already another disambiguation page. Romans (Byzantine Period) is a larger description for Byzantines which is not free of problems; it uses byzantine as a period, it uses Romans as ethnonym. Does it aims to distinguish ancient Romans from medieval Romans (Rhomaioi) ? It seems to me that it just adds more confusion (with Romans now), without solving any problem of the term Byzantines. Aetolorhode (talk) 16:24, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

Per WP:COMMONNAME, inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources. If current scholarship is increasingly questioning "Byzantines" as an accurate label for these people, then using it as the article title is taking a side in an active scholarly debate.

I am open to alternative formulations. The key issue is that the article title should neutrally describe the Roman subjects of the empire ruled from Constantinople between 330 and 1453. In my proposal, "Romans" is being used as a political designation, while "Byzantine period" serves only as a disambiguating periodisation. "Rhomaioi" would be the ethnonym. The purpose of the parenthetical is precisely that "Romans" has multiple meanings and needs disambiguation.

By contrast, "Byzantines" does not resolve the underlying dispute; it simply embeds one side of it in the title. Biz (talk) 21:49, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

This dispute you mention, has as opposite sides the Byzantines title and the (east) Romans title? If yes, then Romans (Byzantine period) just takes the side of the opposite side of the Byzantines. The parenthesis Byzantine period is just necessary for distinction from the most common (ancient) Romans. If not, then what is the dispute, and why Byzantines title is taking the one side? Aetolorhode (talk) 22:04, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

The dispute is not between two equivalent article titles. The dispute is whether "Byzantines" is itself an accurate and neutral label for the people concerned. That question is now evidently prominently debated across Byzantine scholarship.

"Romans (Byzantine period)" does not take the opposite side of that dispute. It uses "Roman" in the broad political sense that the scholarship accepts these people were (Roman_people#Survival_of_the_Roman_Empire_in_the_east), while "Byzantine period" functions only as a chronological disambiguator, which is itself uncontested apart from questions of dating.

By contrast, "Byzantines" uses as the article title the very label whose accuracy and neutrality are now being questioned in reliable sources. That is why the two formulations are not symmetrical. Biz (talk) 23:25, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

Ok, I understand your point now. However, it still has problems i think. first, the political sense in romans is not shown somehow. Second, if Byzantines is not accurate or neutral (neutrality how?), how could Byzantine period be? Byzantines is only questioned in recent scholarship you mention or the term Byzantine empire, byzantine, etc in general? Aetolorhode (talk) 00:11, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree with Aetolorhode, every other title has issues and they are worse. I also I do not see the difference of "Byzantines" vs "Byzantine people" in the literature. Even Revisiting the Byzantine Commonwealth: Nodes, Networks, and Spheres uses "Byzantines". For every other proposal placed and discussed, there is at least one objection with a good reason, while for "Byzantines" there were none (well except your sudden change of mind).

Overall, I think Biz is overthinking about it. If there is a concern then it should be addressed in the main body rather trying to squeeze all of this into a phrase other than the primary descriptor. Neutrality is preserved by how the whole community uses the term (and it has been demonstrated several times over that "Byzantines" is overwhelmingly used in the literature) not by extracting a reason from literature as the latter is WP:OR. A.Cython(talk) 00:20, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

None for "Byzantines"? The archives of this article show that objections to the term long predate the last year. My own view changed because of the weight I think should be given to Revisiting the Byzantine Commonwealth: Nodes, Networks, and Spheres, and I said so as soon as I came across it.

My point is not that we must stop using "Byzantine" everywhere, nor that other article titles must immediately change. The issue is narrower: whether this article should change into "Byzantines", when recent tertiary scholarship now explicitly describes that label itself as contentious.

We now have a 2025 Oxford volume whose abstract and editor both state that "Byzantines" is debated (and uses "East Roman" terminology prominently in the closing chapter) and we are told scholars instead prefer "East Romans" or simply "Romans". That does not automatically dictate a replacement title, but it does mean that "Byzantines" is no longer acceptable, like it may have been before.

WP:COMMONNAME explicitly says that inaccurate names may be avoided even when they are the most frequently used. If there is now a significant scholarly debate over whether "Byzantines" is an inaccurate or misleading label, then frequency alone is not enough.

For that reason, if Romans (Byzantine Period) has issues, then a descriptive title such as People of the Byzantine Empire, or another formulation consistent with WP:NDESC, would be preferable. "Byzantines" can and should still be discussed prominently in the lead and first section, but that is different from making it the article title. Otherwise this Talk will never stop talking and I don't think we can all handle that. Biz (talk) 00:45, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

'Byzantines' is debated in that work you refer to, for the people only or the term Byzantine Empire and Byzantine in general? If this work is so important, since it also uses Byzantine in its title, a solution could be East Romans (Byzantines) or Byzantines (East Romans) better, in order to show both current common name and the new trend you mentioned. However, the current problem is more serious than that: the current name is Rhomaioi and Byzantines is much better for common name reasons. Aetolorhode (talk) 00:57, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

@Biz the consensus of the community is not reflected by a single debate from a single academic book. As I said I do not see a decisive conclusion in the book that "Byzantines" is a bad term, if anything else I read the opposite. It was a debate, which the academic community might ignore or embrace. And even for the sake of the argument that there was such conclusion, it is still no near enough to justify a change in primary descriptor because we would be ignoring the majority of the literature, you see how this is a WP:POV. Objective metrics such as Google Ngram, etc do this better than anything else, and clearly show that "Eastern Roman" (or any other Roman variant) over the years had little recognition. I said several times over, we are not in WP to read tea leaves. If you are right, it will be reflected in objective metrics in the near future, then we open a new discussion. A.Cython(talk) 03:04, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

@A.Cython I'm not saying we use Eastern Romans which would be WP:POV. I'm saying we can't use any term that has contention on the basis of accuracy, which specifically now includes Byzantines as of 2025. If you read past the first paragraph of WP:COMMONNAME, definitionally, that is what is happening right now by the most reliable of sources and yet you are still bringing up Ngram. I've been consistent: pick a more neutral title, that is what is needed for this topic. I'm just one editor so what I say doesn't have to happen. I don't need to repeat myself anymore.

@Aetolorhode, I appreciate your efforts to find consensus but no, Byzantines (East Romans) will not work. Aside from my point about terms in contention, disambiguation only occurs when there is a word with multiple meanings. There are Romans from the Kingdom, Republic, Principate, western empire, eastern empire, western Europe until the 8th century, the city of Rome, and a Japanese rock back. So that is why Romans works as a base which needs to be disambiguated; nothing else qualifies for this situation. Anything with Byzantines in the title does not get my support for what is clearly happening in scholarship; I'm willing to support something using Byzantine (as the periodised Roman empire) as a practical compromise. Biz (talk) 05:14, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Un-constructive edits by BreadAndHumus

Lately there have been a swarm of edits (no edit summary, a blatant violation per WP:SUMEXPLAIN) by BreadAndHumus that IMO degrades the quality of the current article. For similar reasons, the editor's edits were reverted twice in & in Byzantine Empire by Piccco. While there is always room for improvement and the current article certainly needs some attention, the last set of edits are in the opposite direction. Beyond the numerous MoS issues, harvid errors, etc, there are also much more serious issues, WP:POV and WP:OR. I will present one example, but there are more.

BreadAndHumus versionOn the other scholars like Kaldellis claim that the Byzantines considered Greek culture pagan and worldly, dangerous, and alien, not truly their own.[64]
For example although Ioannes Chrysostomos regarded the Hellenic thinkers as pleasant on the outside, he believed that on the inside they were only “ashes and dust” and nothing healthy, “their throats an open grave,” full of filth and rot.[65][66] In the 11th century Ioannes Italos was charged with crime of using Hellenic philosophy to interpret Christianity. From then on a text was added and recited, even today, on the Feast of Orthodoxy condemning him.[67] ...
In 1117, Eustratios, bishop of Nicaea and a pupil of Italos, was condemned by the Church “for employing reason to clarify the faith,” a method it deemed heretical. Twenty-five similar trials are attested, which led the Byzantines to become more cautious and resort to self-censorship.[69]

Unfortunately Kaldellis, who is a very controversial figure and whatever he writes must be taken with a grain of salt since he has been widely refuted, do not exactly say this as he provides numerous caveats to make such claims. So the right context is needed but missing making all these edits subject for removal. Moreover per admission of Kaldellis the current consensus is probably the opposite thus making the source not suitable for WP.

• Modern historians who have retried the case and acquitted Italos have relied uncritically upon what the accused said ‘‘openly’’ rather than on what he probably was teaching ‘‘secretly’’ (to use the terms of the anathema). This means that "Modern historians" disagree with Kaldellis, or the other way round, irrespective of this, a description of Italos solely based one academic viewpoint violates WP:NPOV.
• Kaldelis himself provides the context Scholars who have examined the documents associated with this event have concluded that the tribunal twisted Italos’ words at every turn to produce the desired result. Cynical motives have been ascribed to the prime mover, Alexios himself, who staged events that gave his shaky regime the appeal of religious traditionalism. meaning that this is an example of an emperor holding onto power rather a reflection of the whole society.
• Kaldellis does not conclude what the editor wrote: which led the Byzantines to become more cautious and resort to self-censorship. It says that on a different page than provided (another error) However, young men who aspired to a career in education, the Church, or the court voluntarily abstained from pursuits that were officially indexed. Self-censorship is easily induced by a minimal show of force and disapproval. Again a general fallacy by the editor. Kaldellis speculates only for those "young men" who sought a career in the state (probably a couple of thousand at most and to what degree is probably unknown as Kaldellis speculates without concrete evidence) not the millions of the whole population as it is referred by the editor. Given that there were 25 such trials, it seems either the accusers did not self-censured or these was made up charges in pursuit of power where self-censorship is irrelevant. None of these is indicative of the society as a whole.
• Kaldellis 2008 p. 330 says Though certainly lenient in comparison with the West (medieval or modern)... about the suppression of philosophical thought which has a very different tone than BreadAndHumus version, which reads as the Spanish inquisition! Your own source contradicts your claims!

These are clear errors that cannot be fixed with a simple rewrite because Kaldellis positions do not reflect academic consensus and most of the current topic is controversial. This bring another example of problematic edit the term is now regarded by many scholars as contentious. Really? Who are these "many scholars"? So far there is only one that makes all the fuss, characterized as "misleading and dangerous", "self-serving", "provocateur" and unprofessionally attacking his colleagues, and lack academic rigorousness (to advance his extreme viewpoint either ignores all primary sources or all secondary sources); no signs of an academic who represents the consensus. One academic is not nearly sufficient to raise the issue of "contentious". It was completely inappropriate to insert such WP:POV statements, particularly since there is history of misleading use of Kaldellis books that have already damaged the current article. It remains to be seen Kaldellis will have any relevance in the history of Byzantine Studies and given that institutes are unwilling to drop "Byzantine" from their name, until then his books should not be used in such cavalier manner. As for the second source provided to support the particular statement does not say anything about "contentious" among modern scholars, all it says is that it is "open to question"! Nearly everything in history is an open to question!

I will not go deeper into other errors as there more, but the unwillingness of the editor to comply to WP policies (did not try to fix the other minor errors either) and instead focuses on controversial material and adding his/her personal reading demands immediate removal. Next time use the talk page first to establish consensus and explain the edits instead of violating previous consensus and WP policies. A.Cython(talk) 02:42, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

A.Cython your reversion of all my edits, without distinguishing between constructive and non-constructive changes, may constitute WP:STONEWALL. You cannot put everything in 1 basket and claiming that Kaldellis is controversial. Please reinstall parts of my edits that you think are constructive and then we talk about any objections. BreadAndHumus (talk) 05:47, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Kaldellis is controversial but it was not the reason why your edits were reverted, it was you are misreading him as a source. You made too many changes and broke too many things for us to make separation what is constructive and what is not. We are not here to clean up what you broke. Finally Kaldellis's conspiracy theory (as he does not have any evidence beyond the accusation) of some Western Powers inventing "Byzantine" term to impose their will and bla bla is not a mainstream academic position, so trying to change the narrative of the article into Kaldellis's conspiracy theory by replicating or mentioning aspects of this theory will not cut it. Finally, Kaldellis plays cut and loose with language often inferring two things at the same time but he is careful to add a lot of caveats when presenting an extreme statement, however, you take the statement but forget to include all the caveats. In the end, the article reads worse than what Kaldellis wrote. As mentioned previously, first familiarize with the WP policies and WP:MOS and start learning by editing non-controversial articles. Once you have gained experience through improving article through WP:GA process then come back and edit. A.Cython(talk) 06:07, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Do you have any objections on this paragraph in Self Perception?:

Throughout their history, the majority of Byzantines, with a handful of exceptions, self-identified as Romans (Romaioi). They called their state Romania (i.e. Romanland) or Romais, which was the direct continuation of the ancient Roman empire. Their rulers were the emperors of the Romans, their capital was New Rome (Constantinople), and their language was Romaika (i.e. language of the Romans). In a classicizing vein usually applied to other peoples, Byzantine authors regularly referred to their people as "Ausones", an ancient name for the original inhabitants of Italy. They believed their political history began with Aeneas the King of Troy. The Byzantines never considered uniting their church with other Orthodox peoples, such as the Russians or the Serbs. The question of union was always a matter concerning Western and Eastern Romans. BreadAndHumus (talk) 06:12, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

It overwhelmingly relies on one source and one viewpoint, thus potentially violates WP:NPOV as it reflects the viewpoint of one person, who is controversial at the very least, and thus does not represent mainstream positions, which is what the current article ought to reflect. To be neutral it requires a summary based on the different mainstream positions. A.Cython(talk) 06:20, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Does any scholar disagree with any of these statements? Your argument about NPOV doesn't stand. BreadAndHumus (talk) 06:27, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

This is not a constructive attitude by making rhetorical questions. If there are others that agree on these statement then use those authors as well as Kaldellis. Writing a whole paragraph by paraphrasing Kaldellis books to the point that screams as a promotional ad is in direct violation of WP policies. For example, I also trouble They believed their political history began with Aeneas the King of Troy. I think Kaldellis wanted to be overdramatic here as he often does by invoking the Trojans, probably a more rounded statement would be They regarded themselves as the inheritors of the political legacy of the Roman Empire. Not all Byzantine authors start with Aeneas. A.Cython(talk) 07:04, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I have not made any rhetorical question. Answer the question. Does any scholar disagree with any of these statements? Accusing me of promotional ad is laughable. This may constitute WP:STONEWALL BTW. BreadAndHumus (talk) 07:47, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

The answer is so obvious that makes it rhetorical. Yes and that's why he is such a controversial figure. He is trying to radically rewrite the whole Byzantine Studies while at the same aggressively accusing every other historian being part of a conspiracy theory. Now how many of these historians would agree with him? Whether he will prevail or not is not to be judged here but we should wait how the dust settles within the academic community. Until then I would suggest to read other authors and rewrite the particular paragraph in a more rounded way. Also is WP:STONEWALL is not applicable here. I have given you several opportunities to improve the article by telling you what's wrong in your edits, but you ignored me and refused to comply with WP policies. A.Cython(talk) 13:04, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Everything in this paragraph is well established non-controversial and agreed by the majority of scholarship. You will have to provide sources that contradict any of the following statements:

Throughout their history, the majority of Byzantines, with a handful of exceptions, self-identified as Romans (Romaioi). They called their state Romania (i.e. Romanland) or Romais, which was the direct continuation of the ancient Roman empire. Their rulers were the emperors of the Romans, their capital was New Rome (Constantinople), and their language was Romaika (i.e. language of the Romans). In a classicizing vein usually applied to other peoples, Byzantine authors regularly referred to their people as "Ausones", an ancient name for the original inhabitants of Italy. They believed their political history began with Aeneas the King of Troy. The Byzantines never considered uniting their church with other Orthodox peoples, such as the Russians or the Serbs. The question of union was always a matter concerning Western and Eastern Romans. BreadAndHumus (talk) 13:12, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

You are conflating two different types of Romans, the pagan Latin-speaking people with the Christian Greek-speaking people. The majority of the literature separates these two groups for their obvious differences. Kaldellis is the only one who says screw differences and evidence they are one and the same. Hence his isolation on the matter. There are three schools of thought, Kaldellis represents an extreme version of the Continuity School of thought. The particular school has failed to address the various transformations within the Roman society. The other two schools are more popular because they present a more compelling argument. Kaldellis without evidence or intellectual arguments and by using a conspiracy theory tries to reverse this. Clearly not the mainstream position. This has been discussed before and I will not continue talking here unless you demonstrate a constructive attitude. A.Cython(talk) 13:51, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I have repeatedly ask you to provide evidence to substantiate your claims but you keep changing the subject. Either you will provide evidence that contradict any of the aforementioned statements or if you do not have you will have to let me post the paragraph. What will that be? BreadAndHumus (talk) 14:01, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Word play won't take you far. I have demonstrated already that Kaldellis is not mainstream position, just read the previous discussions in this talk page. Moreover, I have already demonstrate even with Kaldellis source that you are exclusively rely on, i.e., WP:POV issues, there are cases of misreading. You are free to do what you want, but this does not prevent me or anyone to challenge your changes. You have already demonstrate uncooperative and unconstructive attitude. Finally, the burden of verification lies on you as you are trying to change consensus per WP:DUE and WP:ONUS. A.Cython(talk) 14:25, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Romaika is just an alternative name for Medieval Greek, (the terms greek and hellenic for the language were also used by Byzantines), Constantinople was more common as a name than New Rome. My question is where the ''Western Romans'' refers to after 476 AD ? Aetolorhode (talk) 19:21, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree with you. Romaika was how commonly used to describe by everyday people, but Byzantine scholars in their books described their language as Greek/Hellinika, see Anna Komnene statement. Picking up one of the two creates issues of WP:POV. In WP:TERTIARY source like The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies (2008), it dedicates a whole chapter on language, but it does not even mention "Romaika", instead it calls it "Greek".

"Western Romans" is not even mentioned in Kaldellis at the particular page, probably he/she got confused with the following (with a wrong page range) Demetrios Chomatenos, bishop of Ochrid (1216–1236), argued that the ‘‘eastern’’ and ‘‘western Roman lands’’ were already united in their faith even if they were politically divided ... I guess he/she got confused between lands and people? I do not know, but there were multiple issues with the edits of the particular editor. A.Cython(talk) 23:08, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes, most of his edits were just overemphasizing things that are already mentioned. However, the use of western romans in the times of franks, venetians etc, was really strange. Aetolorhode (talk) 23:41, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Sometimes overemphasized, but yes. I agree. A.Cython(talk) 01:05, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Not taking sides, but this looks eerily similar to an old Reddit discussion on Byzantine identity. ~2026-41107-32 (talk) 15:21, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Definitely controversial. We exhausted this line of discussion when in a single year there were three nominations regarding the name of the current article. We concluded that Byzantines is the best and most popular (over numerous metrics), which means that Kaldellis's positions are not mainstream. But this is not the only problem, the editor misreads Kaldellis statements picking up the most sensational/dramatic ones and excludes all the caveats in the book and injects them here. The end result is very problematic to say the least. On top of that there are all the new errors generated because the editor refuse to follow the WP:MOS. You do the math here to see where this is going. A.Cython(talk) 21:38, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I understand. But if Kaldellis isn't mainstream, then wouldn't he logically be fringe? And if that's the case, then why should articles bother citing Kaldellis at all? Reddit's insight, I think, is that the best response to pro-Kaldellis users is to disprove Kaldellis with better sources. Because demonstrating that Kaldellis isn't mainstream isn't the same as demonstrating that Kaldellis is wrong (obviously). Feel free to disagree, but as long as Kaldellis is accepted as an authority, pro-Kaldellis users will promote him as the authority. You might prevent future exhaustion by either ditching Kaldellis or disproving Kaldellis in a footnote. I don't know, you do the math. ~2026-40972-38 (talk) 16:58, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

The issue of this discussion is the addition or not in the section Self-Pecption of the following paragraph:

Throughout their history, the majority of Byzantines, with a handful of exceptions, self-identified as Romans (Romaioi). They called their state Romania (i.e. Romanland) or Romais, which was the direct continuation of the ancient Roman empire. Their rulers were the emperors of the Romans, their capital was New Rome (Constantinople), and their language was Romaika (i.e. language of the Romans). In a classicizing vein usually applied to other peoples, Byzantine authors regularly referred to their people as "Ausones", an ancient name for the original inhabitants of Italy. They believed their political history began with Aeneas the King of Troy. The Byzantines never considered uniting their church with other Orthodox peoples, such as the Russians or the Serbs. The question of union was always a matter concerning Western and Eastern Romans.

Anyone can present evidence of any scholar that contradict any of the aforementioned statements. Trying to deflect from the issue is not helpful and the motivation is easily discernible. BreadAndHumus (talk) 17:55, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

It is not as black and white. Kaldellis is a prolific author generating high quality translations at volume. However, the author adopts within the spectrum in the different schools of thought regarding the Byzantine Empire at the extreme of the Continuity School, which comes down to everything is Roman and burn everything else; the last bit is not far off from his calls for Byzantine Studies departments and the field itself to be renamed as East Roman Studies (or something similar). To make his case he is often relies on circumstantial evidence and he does not have a clear methodology, i.e., picks only the evidence that he likes and ignores the rest. The case of refuting him has already been made in the current article, Warren Treadgold put it better in his A Concise History of Byzantium (2025) pp. xiii–xiv On the other hand, I differ with other scholars, particularly Anthony Kaldellis, author of a recent survey of Byzantine history, who argue that the Byzantine Empire should be called the “New Roman Empire,” the “East Roman Empire,” “Romania,” or “Romanland” and should be categorized a “republic” or “nation-state.” Every Byzantinist knows that the Byzantine Empire was a continuation of the Roman Empire and that its people called themselves Romans throughout its history; almost all Byzantinists also think that the Roman Empire changed so much in its later phase that another name is needed to distinguish it. This is the reason the terms “Byzantine Empire” and “Byzantium” have been generally accepted since the nineteenth century. The argument against them is essentially that they have acquired negative connotations that can be avoided by using other names to “rebrand” Roman history after the third century. This argument makes little sense to me. The Byzantinists who have used the terms “Byzantine Empire” and “Byzantium” have taken a mostly sympathetic attitude toward their subject, though they have made some criticisms of it. Justified criticisms are a feature of all sound scholarship, even if today many scholars appear to feel that they should defend their fields uncritically. (Historians of Nazi Germany are honorable exceptions.) Unjustified criticisms should be refuted by arguments and evidence, not by changing well-established terms to obscure the issues. (added emphasis) The last sentence essentially says that Kaldellis does not have neither the arguments or the evidence, but do not say this to Kaldellis fans. The trouble is that the Continuity School of thought has been unable to explain the various social transformation (sometimes abrupt) and in the last decades has been in decline. With Kaldellis some see a chance for a comeback, though this is not done with evidence but with a conspiratorial accusation (western powers invented the "Byzantine" for their purposes, bla bla).

Now ditching him would not be wise, but a careful reading and filtering out the dramatic and hyperbole statements is necessary. This is precisely what I have told to the editor by reading other authors to be better at summarizing, but he/she appears to be on the war path and even threatened me with escalation. Not to mention being reverted (four times) by other editors in Byzantine Empire article. A.Cython(talk) 20:19, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

To BreadAndHumus: No deflection, no "discernible motivation". But your statements largely resemble how GrandDukeNotaras, the pro-Kaldellis user, engages with critics like Lothronion on Reddit. And why'd you tacitly admit to disregarding evidence altogether in saying that "[a]nyone can present evidence of any scholar that contradict any of the aforementioned statements"? Sounds like your cup is already full. And if that's the case, then why should anyone engage, or continue engaging, with you? A.Cython, like Lothronion, has made a strong case against Kaldellis. Feel free to disagree, but the issue you described resembles a glazing of Kaldellis that says very little, if anything, about the Byzantines. I don't mean to insult, but you can't avoid asking yourself: "Am I thinking for myself or allowing someone else to think for me?" The question is important because no one, including you, is limited to Kaldellis. ~2026-41255-45 (talk) 21:05, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

To A.Cython: Thanks for the explanation. Your referencing Treadgold resembles Lothronion referencing Stouraitis and other scholars on Reddit. But ask yourself: "Should favor of, or disfavor of, Kaldellis be the lynchpin of an article?" If the answer is "yes", then why Kaldellis and not someone else? If the answer is "no", then can you visualize an article without Kaldellis? The whole issue isn't black and white, but Kaldellis made it black and white. That's why the questions are important. ~2026-41255-45 (talk) 21:05, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

WP is a collaborative effort and per neutrality any article should not reflect the opinion of any specific author (Kaldellis or any other). Our job is to summarize what is commonly shared by the academics and as part of established consensus. I do not mind Kaldellis being used as a source but I object when he is used as the narrative of the article at the expense of everything else. However, the trouble is that the particular editor is misreading Kaldellis as a source, irrespective of the controversial nature of the author. The latter just amplifies the whole thing, especially when whole paragraphs are written based on a single source, that is a violation WP:NPOV. It would have helped is the editor would summarize the work of several authors rather than paraphrasing only one author. Note that close paraphrasing requires immediate removal because is a copyright violation.

I have already pointed that this sentence is problematic: "They believed their political history began with Aeneas the King of Troy." Who is they? The editor presents as universal truth for all Byzantine scholars. Kaldellis presents it within the framework of Justinian's propaganda and his paid historians about Aeneas. It would be much more helpful to rephrase Kaldellis statement Institutional continuity and excellent historical records easily established the authentic Roman origin and imperial legitimacy of their state and society. rather than generalizing the Justinian propaganda about Aeneas. Moreover, Kaldellis claims that later historians accepted this, without offering evidence. Most Byzantine historians did not start their histories all the way to Aenaeas, Procopius and Anna Komnene as far as I remember did not. John Malalas mentions Aeneas story mixed Biblical origins but does not explicitly says that's the origin of the Roman state. So Kaldellis's claim of widespread acceptance is dicey. Not to mention that there several studies about how ancient Greeks epics and Alexander's epics were retold by the Byzantines. Focusing on Aeneas just creates confusion and misleads the reader.

The Byzantines never considered uniting their church with other Orthodox peoples, such as the Russians or the Serbs. The question of union was always a matter concerning Western and Eastern Romans. This is also misleading with elements of WP:OR e..g., Kaldellis says barbarian orthodox peoples he does not specify Russians or Serbs and in the particular pages the issue is only at the very late stage of the empire and not talking about the whole period. These are issues that require attention, by his/her own source! A.Cython(talk) 22:08, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

I understand. But the question you now have to ask is: "Does Kaldellis add value to 'what is shared by the academics'?" Because if Treadgold and other experts don't think so, then what's the point of including Kaldellis anywhere? Appeals to collaboration, neutrality, regulations, and "he's misreading X" can only do so much. What counts, at least for readers, is a refutation of Kaldellis that doesn't limit the article to rules set by, or rules broken by, Kaldellis. I don't know, maybe look at Lothronion's sources and recommendations for an answer to your dilemma (e.g., 1, 2, 3). ~2026-41040-78 (talk) 01:31, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

I do not have a straightforward answer. The short answer and within the academic debate is yes: Kaldellis by being outrageous energizes the community either to prove him wrong or join to burn the old world. Do not get me wrong here, this function is vital in scholarship: there has to be a thesis and an antithesis and through the conflict of the two one can find synthesis, which becomes the new thesis, and so on. However, this value is irrelevant in WP and to its readers. We are not supposed to care about the ongoing conflict of thesis and antithesis (current academic debate), only the current established thesis (WP:TERTIARY sources are preferable for this purpose). Only when this thesis changes we are supposed to revise. Not all share this sentiment, some are more eager to update WP because the establishment of a new thesis. Please point out where my understanding has a flaw as this is how I interpret WP policies. PS: I will read Orphanos PhD thesis in the following days. A.Cython(talk) 03:14, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

I understand. Policy's outside my wheelhouse though. And I don't wish to distract you, or worse exhaust you, with more questions. We can resume discussion once you're ready with an answer that I hope you'll find. ~2026-41362-60 (talk) 04:20, 25 July 2026 (UTC)