Byzantine Identity and Languages: Romans, Greeks, and a Diverse Empire

The inhabitants usually called Byzantines identified their state as Roman and commonly used Rhōmaioi, Romans, for themselves. Regional communities also used other languages and maintained local affiliations within the empire. The name Rhōmania described the empire’s lands. Greek became dominant in official use, education and literature, particularly after the seventh century. Modern historians use “Byzantine” to distinguish this eastern medieval state from other phases of Roman history.

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Why the empire is called Byzantine

“Byzantine” derives from Byzantion, the earlier Greek settlement on the site where Constantine founded Constantinople. In antiquity and the Middle Ages, the word primarily referred to the city and its inhabitants. Later writers gradually extended it to the empire as a whole. The label became established in modern historical writing, particularly through early modern scholars and nineteenth-century historians.

Constantine founded Constantinople as a Roman imperial capital in the fourth century. Its rulers continued to claim Roman authority after the western court disappeared. Greek-speaking eastern provinces consequently formed the territorial and cultural core of a state whose public identity remained Roman. Western Europeans increasingly called the inhabitants “Greeks,” especially after the papacy and the rulers associated with Charlemagne claimed a separate Roman imperial position. In Arabic and Persian usage, however, the eastern empire continued to be known as the land of the Romans, or Rūm.

Roman identity and the meaning of belonging

For most of the Middle Ages, Rhōmaios was the principal term of self-identification. In official language, all inhabitants of the empire were subjects of the emperor and therefore Romans. Orthodox Christianity and Greek speech became prominent characteristics of imperial public life. People also entered the state through settlement, service and incorporation of their communities. Roman belonging could therefore coexist with varied regional origins.

The empire’s inhabitants could hold several identities at once. Someone might be a Roman subject, an Orthodox Christian, a speaker of Greek or another language, and a person of a particular province or city. Local identity could be especially strong. Byzantine writers used terms meaning “stranger” for people from another region of the empire as well as for foreigners.

Provincial names and later administrative districts supplied regional labels. Writers used these to describe origins and local relationships within the empire.

From a multilingual empire to a Greek-speaking core

Greek already had a powerful position in the eastern Mediterranean before the Byzantine period. Since the Hellenistic age, forms of Greek had served as a common language of administration, commerce, education, and intellectual exchange across much of the region. Greek was widely used in the eastern Roman provinces when Constantine made Constantinople the capital.

Latin nevertheless remained important. It was the traditional language of Roman law, military command, and imperial administration, and it continued to appear in official contexts during the early centuries of the eastern empire. Over time, Greek replaced Latin in more and more public functions. The early empire included Coptic-speaking Egyptians, Syriac and other Aramaic-speaking communities, Armenians and Latin speakers alongside Greek speakers. Commerce and administration encouraged bilingual usage where official and household languages differed. Arab conquest removed Syria, Egypt and later North Africa from imperial rule. This reduced the number of Coptic- and Aramaic-speaking subjects within the state. Armenian and Slavic communities remained or entered through subsequent territorial change and settlement.

Medieval Greek and the problem of diglossia

The Greek of the empire stood between Hellenistic Koine and the modern language. Spoken Greek continued to change, while education preserved older literary models. This produced diglossia, a condition in which different forms of the same language serve different social and formal purposes.

Everyday speech developed from the living language of the population. Formal writing, by contrast, often imitated classical Attic Greek, the language associated with ancient philosophers and orators. Educated writers used this elevated register in histories, sermons, legal works, and official texts, even when their spoken language differed considerably. Christian authors also inherited the classical rhetorical tradition, adapting it to theological and ecclesiastical purposes.

From the eleventh century onward, vernacular elements became more visible in literature. After 1204, when the Fourth Crusade captured Constantinople and Byzantine territory was divided among rival states and Latin powers, literary production became more geographically varied. Poems, romances, laments, fables, and chronicles could use forms closer to speech. The Ptochoprodromic poems associated with Theodoros Prodromos illustrate this movement toward vernacular expression.

Contacts introduced Latin, Slavic, Arabic and other loanwords into medieval Greek. Venetian and Genoese trade enlarged contact with Italian, especially after the twelfth century.

Christianity and the boundaries of identity

Christianity became increasingly central to imperial identity between the fourth and fifth centuries. When Constantine came to power, Christians were still a minority of the Roman population. During the following centuries Christianity expanded through imperial patronage, church organisation, education, social networks, and conversion. By the end of the fifth century, it had become the dominant religious framework of the eastern empire.

Greek supplied much of the theology promoted from Constantinople. Egyptian, Syrian and Armenian churches also developed literary and liturgical traditions in their own languages. Disputes over the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which defined Christ as one person with both a human and a divine nature, and later doctrinal decisions divided Christian communities and shaped their relations with the imperial church. Emperors financed churches and convened councils. Patriarchs, bishops and monks also negotiated or opposed particular policies, participating in decisions over doctrine and institutional authority.

Cyril and Methodius’s ninth-century mission used Slavic translations of Christian texts. Their work established a literary language for worship among Slavic communities, extending Christianity through a language other than Greek.

Changing uses of “Hellene”

The word “Hellene” had an unstable history. In much of late antiquity and the early Byzantine period, it could mean a pagan, so Christian writers often preferred “Roman” or “Christian.” From the eleventh century, some educated writers began to revive Hellene as a reference to Greek culture or ancestry. Its use increased among certain intellectuals after 1204, when the successor state centred at Nicaea and other Byzantine territories competed with Latin rulers for political legitimacy.

Some rulers of Nicaea associated Hellenic culture with the Roman polity after 1204. Gemistos Plethon and John Argyropoulos later used assertive language about Hellenic identity. These statements are best documented within educated circles, alongside continued Roman self-description.

Roman identity after 1453

Roman self-identification continued after 1453 among Orthodox communities. Ottoman usage called them Rum, associating the name with Orthodox religious belonging. Administration of these communities developed over time under the patriarchate and Ottoman government.

Christian communities in former Byzantine lands followed different paths. Some remained Greek-speaking and Orthodox; others became Arabic-speaking Christian communities, converted to Islam, or adopted Turkish language and identity over time. Greek-speaking Orthodox populations in the Balkans, the Aegean, Anatolia, and elsewhere could continue to call themselves Romioi, meaning Romans, well into the modern period.

The modern Greek state increasingly used “Greek” and Hellene as public designations. Romioi and Romiosyni nevertheless remained in use, preserving Roman terminology in language and cultural affiliation.

The relationship between language and belonging also depended on the empire’s changing geography and population. A loss of territory could remove a large linguistic community from imperial rule without ending its cultural or religious connections with Constantinople.