Were Byzantines Better, Continued

Continued

from part I, and italics denote citation of opponents previous (usually immediately so) comment.

Panos A

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
Not to mention that you just insulted how your fellow Greeks eat the gyros

LOL! You are the evidence of how pathetic villagers try to over-do it when trying "going to Rome and be like Romans". In Greece we call it "becoming more royal than royalty". The excess that divides the civilized and the pseudo-civilized. Shits like British manners and Savoir Vivre are the evidence of that. Idiot : gyros is the meat and gets its name from the rotating barbeque and of course it is eaten like all other types of meat, with fork and knife. By extension gyros can also be the sandwich eaten in bread or more popularly in pitta. And bread is eaten with hands, not with spoon an fork

Having clarified this point let us go to your other key, but failed, points.

"""""Emperor""""" Charly : a commemorative coin is no official document. Sure when Pope named him as such they would had minted such things. His state's coins were stating king, not emperor. His legal documents mentioned king. His descendants were kings not Emperors. The title """Emperor"""" is note in history in conjunction with Pope's failed effort to re-institute the long-defunct Western Roman Empire.

Holy Roman Empire : no more shit please : the full title applied on the riff-raff joke-of-a-state appears after 1200s and not in the 1000s of 1100s as often is mentioned in western historiography. The term "Empire" is a misuse of the term as it was a riff-raff collection of totally independent and often fighting with each other states (note: NOT CIVIL WARS within the same state but wars between states). The HRE term is kept in history as a practical joke summed up by Voltaire if I remember correctly : Not Holy, Not Roman and Not an Empire.

Otto I became Holy Roman Emperor on Februrary 2nd 962, succeeding Berengarius II of Italy, who had submitted to him in 961. The thing that changes is that the Germanic nation becomes the main one. If on your view Hellenic nation could do so, why not Germanic nation

First of all it is not my view, that is the historic reality. Second, claiming Germans could claim the "Roman" term is like claiming Indians could claim the term "Chinese Empire". Germans were not part of the Roman Empire and even when they - mostly ethnic Goths (Germanophone speaking an eastern germanic language but hardly any ethnic Germans) - joined in they had joined as Foederati and were banned from being Emperors, he reason why Stilicho, of Vandal father and Roman mother, could not become Emperor himself and, as a magister militum, he had to be ruled by weak western Emperor Valentinian II, then by Theodosios and then Honorius. On the contrary Greeks were part of the Roman Empire and were the first nation other than Latins who were massively given citizenship much prior to Caracalla's reforms in the 3rd century. Romans themselves acknowledged their own existence being interwoven with that of Greeks and that their Empire's civilizational base was the Greek civilization. With the transfer of capital from West to the East that happened not in 330 but in 285 and by (pagan and quite a staunch anti-christian and a latin-speaker) Emperor Diocletianus, the Greeks who already helf high offices in the regions eastern part of the Empire, not just in Greece but throughout Asia and North Africa, then they became the nation that manned the Empire's bureaucracy, the reason why already in Constantine's time all laws, typically written still in Latin, had to be instantly translated to Greek. So much this interwoving was going on that in the following centuries the terms "Greek" and "Roman" were being used interchangeably to the point that Latins were not anymore linked to the "Roman" term but rather to... Pope and the city of Rome only. "Roman" was a political term linked hence to Greeks. WHERE do the Germans fit in all that? They destroyed the western part and there was no Roman Empire there anymore. And then centuries later they jump up on the basis of occupying north Italy to claim what? Being Romans? LOL! Holy Chinese Empire... of Bollywood! Sure they used all the terms they liked to use but that has nothing to do with reality.

+Hans-Georg Lundahl

Now let us go back to gyros...

Indeed, St Peter Damian who was a trad preferred to eat

He was from Ravenna. One of the last vestiges of Eastern Roman rule in North Italy. Though he lived a couple of centuries after the end of that rule as such he only knew half the manners. LOL!

If you have ever eaten a hamburger, sausage or chicken without fork, you have been taught to eat like a Latin Frank.

I ignore how "Latin Franks" eat humburgers, sausage and chicken but I personally eat hamburgers with knife and fork, sausages with knife and fork (I eat these with hands only in a sandwich, just like the case of gyros) and chicken with knife and fork apart the leg for which I may use the hand if there is easy access to water or if I have to lift-off and go to another room to wash, I may as well use a napkin piece to hold it (but as said that is my own personal preference, it is not Savoir Vivre).

In fact, I didn't, I was of course willing to make Italy rather than Byzantium origin of the modern fork, but I checked. I did know a Western Medieval knight for centuries after 1056 was expected to use his fingers. I do not consider that as barbaric

Nor do I. I think you are losing the core issue here which is not to pinpoint the correct way to eat or which style is best, forks, sticks or hands whatever. The case is that the eating habits are one of the most basic civilizational traits and it happens that while European eating manners are derived by medieval Greeks, of the Eastern Roman Empire, popularized of course first in Italy and then in the rest of Europe not a single European knows about that. Not the slightest. And that is something extremely basic and extremely important. Not knowing something as basic as that cannot permit anyoen to claim he "knows about Byzantines". No western European knows about "Byzantines". Ask them on Roman Law and most will think Roman Law was the Law of Rome - I have seen this even in "historical documentaries" counted as the legacy of Rome, claiming to be serious! LOL!

But since you thought the issue was about cleanliness and filthyness in eating manners, there is tons of that stuff in medieval Greek literature as Greeks loved to describe how filthy were western Europeans, and in particular their aristocrats and royalties... fuck the Crusades, fuck the early Renaissance... as late as in the year 1400, i.e. well into the Renaissance, one of the last Eastern Roman Emperors, Emmanuel Paleologos did a tour reaching up to Britain to discuss the idea of another Crusade. The British - who back then were of the most progressive and fast-developing states in Europe - were not interested but were nontheless delighted in hosting an Emperor so their royalties (the king was Henry IV - raised in France in the manners of the... Franks! LOL!) outdid themselves to host him well and impress him with their feast. Needless to say it was a savegery.... Emmanuel left disgusted... dirty people, dirty hands, foods randomly on tables like a buffet on which everyone was attacking anyhow and anymeans, LOL! And lots of dogs and cats circulating around walking on tables and grabbing bits and parts. In Greece, even in the sad, destroyed Greece of 1400s not even in the lowliest of social settings would anyone see such a miserable picture. In year 1400 ... so imagine what was the case earlier! LOL!

It is fairly clear you indulge in a typical Byzantine (according to my experience) habit of overinterpretation

Over-interpretation? Exaggeration you mean?* You mean the 99,999% is an exaggeration? You may as well be right. In Europe alone (not counting European people living elsewhere) there are around 750,000,000 people. Subtract 10 million Greeks (even that I shouldn't as indeed more than half of Greeks ignore this issue too, the case of a faulty educational system designed from abroad). The 0,001% of 740,000,000 million Europeans is 740,000 souls. Which indeed is an over-exaggeration as European who know this issue are far fewer than that.

I mention this just to show how little you know on one of the most basic characteristics of your culture.

*

No, I don't mean that, overinterpretation and exaggeration are different things. Eisegesis is not hyperbole. I can't lecture him on everything.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

[answer divided on youtube into

three parts.]

First part:

"And bread is eaten with hands, not with spoon an fork"

Including if it involves gyros inside ... meaning, meat is not always eaten with fork.

"a commemorative coin is no official document."

Who says it was commemorative?

"Sure when Pope named him as such they would had minted such things."

It is not from Rome AD 800. It is from Mainz 812.

"His state's coins were stating king, not emperor."

Those minted before 800 (he acceeded the crown in 768, 1200 years before I was born), certainly.

"His legal documents mentioned king."

Dito.

"His descendants were kings"

Since he had three sons or grandsons, the two who were not emperor were kings.

"not Emperors."

True only of the ones who were NOT in the line already given, which seemingly you ignored.

"The HRE term is kept in history as a practical joke summed up by Voltaire if I remember correctly : Not Holy, Not Roman and Not an Empire."

Thanks for showing once again you are not a Christian.

After showing deplorable ignorance of history of HRE.

Christian Bohemia was as integral to HRE as Texas to US before the Civil War which had a centralising outcome. Poland and Hungary were as close to HRE as Guam and Philippines and Puerto Rico are to US.

"First of all it is not my view, that is the historic reality."

Not on the view of those who consider Byzantine as Un-Roman since ignorant of Latin.

"Second, claiming Germans could claim the "Roman" term is like claiming Indians could claim the term "Chinese Empire"."

More like saying Mongols and Manchurians could.

Vienna was a Roman Oppidum under Caesar Augustus.

"Germans were not part of the Roman Empire"

Germans were superficial newocomers in more than one part of HRE, even when imposing the language. Also, since Domitian, some Germans were part of Roman Empire. Look at Porta Nigra in Trier (if you visit or online).

"and even when they - mostly ethnic Goths (Germanophone speaking an eastern germanic language but hardly any ethnic Germans) - joined in they had joined as Foederati and were banned from being Emperors, he reason why Stilicho, of Vandal father and Roman mother, could not become Emperor himself and, as a magister militum, he had to be ruled by weak western Emperor Valentinian II, then by Theodosios and then Honorius."

You cannot equate either Austrians, of non-Germanic, ultimately Celtic, origin, or Franks with Goths or Vandals.

The status is not the same, since they are not the same historic entity.

"On the contrary Greeks were part of the Roman Empire"

Like later also Germans, before breakup. AND Celts, the origin of some parts of the Germanies.

"and were the first nation other than Latins who were massively given citizenship"

I thought non-Latin Italians were and later ... Celts, because that is how Julius Caesar got votes.

"Romans themselves acknowledged their own existence being interwoven with that of Greeks and that their Empire's civilizational base was the Greek civilization."

Not disputed. Note, it was a Greek civilisation as yet ignorant of using fork while eating. They ate meat like gyros is eaten in pita.

"With the transfer of capital from West to the East that happened not in 330 but in 285"

Rome was however restored as capital. AND if capital could be transferred to Constantinople, it could also be so to Aachen or Vienna.

"the reason why already in Constantine's time all laws, typically written still in Latin, had to be instantly translated to Greek."

As in HRE a Latin law was routinely translated to diverse dialects of German (in diverse chanceries).

"WHERE do the Germans fit in all that? They destroyed the western part and there was no Roman Empire there anymore."

That is false. You are missing the story of Syagrius and of Clovis. You are pretending Franks are Goths when Franks are NOT Goths.

"He was from Ravenna. One of the last vestiges of Eastern Roman rule in North Italy. Though he lived a couple of centuries after the end of that rule as such he only knew half the manners. LOL!"

Who says forks had been invented before Byzantium lost Ravenna?

"Nor do I. I think you are losing the core issue here which is not to pinpoint the correct way to eat or which style is best, forks, sticks or hands whatever. The case is that the eating habits are one of the most basic civilizational traits"

Laws and literature are more important, I'd say.

"and it happens that while European eating manners are derived by medieval Greeks, of the Eastern Roman Empire, popularized of course first in Italy and then in the rest of Europe not a single European knows about that. Not the slightest."

Apart from mistaking the origin as being Italian, I did.

I also happen to be European.

"Not knowing something as basic as that cannot permit anyoen to claim he "knows about Byzantines"."

Anyone can have a lacuna, no single lacuna can be made an excuse for "you know nothing".

"Ask them on Roman Law and most will think Roman Law was the Law of Rome - I have seen this even in "historical documentaries" counted as the legacy of Rome, claiming to be serious! LOL!"

I don't labour under the ignorance consider Codex Iuris Civilis by Justinian (from Constantinople) to have been in force in the times of Nero or Domitian. I do know, the original wording of "in incertum vagantes" was a warrant for making slaves out of beggars. In HRE it was reinterpreted so that a beggar was instead put in apprenticeship, unless he already knew two trades and had no chance of living off either, in which case he was allowed to beg.

Again, HRE more civilised than Byzantium. Need I get to castrate signers?

Castration was illegal in Austria, and the man who had offered Haydn to save his voice could have been put to prison by Haydn's father. Guess where it was most practised? Venice.

Again, what does "spadarius" mean?

"there is tons of that stuff in medieval Greek literature as Greeks loved to describe how filthy were western Europeans,"

It could be a topos among Pharisees and Pharisaically minded men, right?

"and in particular their aristocrats and royalties... fuck the Crusades, fuck the early Renaissance... as late as in the year 1400, i.e. well into the Renaissance, one of the last Eastern Roman Emperors, Emmanuel Paleologos did a tour reaching up to Britain to discuss the idea of another Crusade. The British - who back then were of the most progressive and fast-developing states in Europe - were not interested but were nontheless delighted in hosting an Emperor so their royalties (the king was Henry IV - raised in France in the manners of the... Franks! LOL!) outdid themselves to host him well and impress him with their feast. Needless to say it was a savegery.... Emmanuel left disgusted... dirty people, dirty hands, foods randomly on tables like a buffet on which everyone was attacking anyhow and anymeans,"

1400 was "well into the Renaissance" in Italy, not in England. (Britain is an anachronism, since England, Scotland and Ireland were three separate kingdoms).

It was also during 100 Years' War.

Any royalty had spent years in camps and on battlefields. Even in France, manners were arguably worse than earlier in the time of St Louis IX. However, I think part of what he may have reacted to was the very idea of a buffet.

"And lots of dogs and cats circulating around walking on tables and grabbing bits and parts."

Sounds Biblical. Matthew 15:27.

Walking on tables sounds like cats ...

"The 0,001% of 740,000,000 million Europeans is 740,000 souls. Which indeed is an over-exaggeration as European who know this issue are far fewer than that."

I'd definitely say there are layers of people where historical knowledge is no big thing in the first place.

Panos A

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Look idiot, you are not going to convince anyone with your blabbering talk ... Roman Law existing under Nero or Domitian... idiot you have no clue of what is Roman Law. It is NOT the legal system of Old Rome which was a patchwork that covered over the earlier borrowing of the Attic Code of Law. Roman Law does not refer to single laws idiot, it refers to the COOOODDDDEEE of Laws, it is a whole work behind to rationalize the justice system. Hand-picking laws and claiming this or that existed under Nero will get you nowhere. Sure, the law that forbids murder exists since before the code of laws of Hamurabi. So what?

Again, HRE more civilised than Byzantium. Need I get to castrate signers

Oh you found castration (a millenia old practice all over the world... ) to claim the Unholy Unroman Notempire as more civilized than the Eastern Roman Empire? Idiot, the Eastern Roman Empire had a more educated population than your country currently has. There has never been any Empire, any state, any culture that has been more admired in its days than that of Constantinople, not ancient Rome, not even ancient Athens, forget about the rest. The Holy Roman Empire was a pile of nothingness, made out of a massive illiterate mass ruled by modestly educated (you know... the basics...) oligarchs who were basically run by the Venetians.

Try better next time.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Look idiot, you are not going to convince anyone with your blabbering talk"

Reading is a synaesthesia ... but you push it very far into some delirium about how I sound and you seem to omit reading the actual words.

"Roman Law existing under Nero or Domitian... idiot you have no clue of what is Roman Law."

I made fairly clear it was not I who imagined that, but my adversaries in discussions - your equals in condescension, your inferiors about Roman Law knowledge.

"It is NOT the legal system of Old Rome which was a patchwork that covered over the earlier borrowing of the Attic Code of Law."

I am, as I already explained, well aware that Codex Iuris Civilis comes from Justinian who ruled in Constantinople.

"Roman Law does not refer to single laws idiot, it refers to the COOOODDDDEEE of Laws, it is a whole work behind to rationalize the justice system. Hand-picking laws and claiming this or that existed under Nero will get you nowhere."

The one law I did handpick in order to confer how it applied under Justinian and how it applied under Holy Roman Emperor had nothing to do with Nero.

My point was, it had one wording in Justinian's original, which was slave-hunting and one application in Holy Roman Empire which was not so.

"Oh you found castration (a millenia old practice all over the world... ) to claim the Unholy Unroman Notempire as more civilized than the Eastern Roman Empire? Idiot, the Eastern Roman Empire had a more educated population than your country currently has."

So, you imagine of two places and times, one has more reading skills (something you are not showing, but you could blame the non-Greek half) and the other has no legal possibility to castrate anyone, even if it is sometimes circumvented ... and your criterium for civilisation is such that the reading skills are more important?

Since, as the Classics professor we listened to said (or perhaps I only read his subtitles), the backbone of Byzantine civilisation was a transcendental view of the world, of life, in occurrence a Christian one, civilisation should be judged by how Christian it was. Lacking reading skills is far less of a blemish than castration. HRE was more Holy than Byzantine Empire.

Panos A

Since, as the Classics professor we listened to said (or perhaps I only read his subtitles), the backbone of Byzantine civilisation was a transcendental view of the world, of life, in occurrence a Christian one, civilisation should be judged by how Christian it was

Blah blah blah... meanwhile back in reality, those you call idiotically `````byzantines````` went to school at the tender age of 6 learning the alphabet and reading on the Iliad. Of course in your culture - which is merely a local culture, not a civilization - you have never produced such works so a direct comparison would not be possible but still, there has never been a single germanic school where schoolchildren learnt to read directly on Goethe or Schiller. Greek kids in the Middle Ages did it, directly on Homer. Iliad and Oddysey. Bitch (to bring it down to your semi-illiterate level).

Idiot, there has never been a civilization that matched the Eastern Roman`s citizens`average educational level. Ever. Not even ancient Greeks - speaking on average - had attained that refinement. Your 18th century baroc-oco poets and writers are caricatures - your own greatest philosopher, little Friedrich, admitted so. Above I had shown you that you pathetically ignored even where you got your own eating habits, as said, it is useless to even having this conversation with you whem you try to compare World Cup level teams with your 3rd division village teams... Holy Roman Empire - the best joke of European history. LOL!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Blah blah blah... meanwhile back in reality,"

Look, reality is not a nickname for your own idiosyncrasies.

"those you call idiotically `````byzantines````` went to school at the tender age of 6 learning the alphabet and reading on the Iliad."

And Homer who never learned to write would have been horrified at what Byzantines were doing at other levels. Like gouging or castration, for two.

"Of course in your culture - which is merely a local culture, not a civilization - you have never produced such works"

Virgil's Aeneid and anonymous poet's Beowulf are not such works - how?

Anonymous poet's Nibelungen is not such a work - how?

Or were you unaware these works exist? And that where they were written, you did not have any spadarius anymore than whereever Homer made the Iliad.

"so a direct comparison would not be possible but still, there has never been a single germanic school where schoolchildren learnt to read directly on Goethe or Schiller."

There have been over Frankish kingdom and Roman Empire where they went from Disticha Catonis to Phaedrus, from Phaedrus to Hexameters of some Virgil, Prudentius, Statius.

"Greek kids in the Middle Ages did it, directly on Homer. Iliad and Oddysey. Bitch (to bring it down to your semi-illiterate level)."

And Latin Franks did it on Latin ... as for your epithet abut me, I am not the one using "blah blah" or "idiot" or "back in reality" or things, you are the one doing so, and you just added one.

"Idiot, there has never been a civilization that matched the Eastern Roman`s citizens`average educational level. Ever. "

Another "idiot" and again from Mister Savoir Vivre à la Nouvelle Rome ...

You gave me that "statistic" once before, and I asked how you did statistics about how many OF the East Romans actually did go to school and actually did acquire this proficiency. You did not answer then ...

"Not even ancient Greeks - speaking on average - had attained that refinement."

And how do you get an average for Ancient Greece? It was not even one single state with one single educational system ...

"Your 18th century baroc-oco poets and writers are caricatures - your own greatest philosopher, little Friedrich, admitted so."

I actually do not know whom you call our greatest philosopher "Friedrich" ... do you mean Nietzsche?

I am NOT Prussian, I do NOT consider either Nietzsche or Schopenhauer as "my" philosophers, they are NORTH of the Danube border. I was born in Vienna, where Marcus Aurelius died, and my greatest philosophers are Sts Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, Albert of Saxony, as well as Bishop Étienne Tempier ...

I also do not consider either Schiller or Goethe as being as great as Aeneid or ... Tolkien. If no German schoolboy on German schools learned German directly from them, it is because:

• when German became learning language, the idea of Classics as the very basics was gone;
• Homer has a grammar simpler than that of Classic Attic, Goethe has a grammar more complex than Grimmelshausen (who, let's be fair, was NOT a Prussian either).

"Above I had shown you that you pathetically ignored even where you got your own eating habits"

One of them, with some degree of ignorance - which you show too if you imagine that eating with fork is sth which had been lost between Exarchate of Ravenna and St Peter Damien.

It is a Byzantine invention. Like eating with chop sticks is a Chinese one. It is not Ancient Greek and not Ancient Roman.

Any fork from Augustus' time was as different from a table fork as a ladle is from a spoon. It was used for serving boiled meat without giving too much liquid. It was not put into anyone's mouth. It is Medieval Franks, Latins, who better preserved Old Roman eating habits, though now we are Byzantinised.

"whem you try to compare World Cup level teams with your 3rd division village teams"

If you think of size, how about comparing the extent of Charles V of Holy Roman Empire with that of the last Palaeologus?

But I am not into size. I am into gentleness. That is why I value things like:

• no slavery
• no gouging
• no castration

and these things are earlier on in Francia than in Byzantium.