I don’t know much about Roman history, but I only have this to offer: it’s tricky to decide how we categorise groups of peoples. Do we split them by race, religion, culture, customs, physical borders such as mountains, climates? The list is endless. The borders between actual peoples are blurred, whilst human-implemented borders such as states and countries and empires are forced and definite. You can’t tell A that they belong absolutely to A if their characteristics are blended with that of B. The problem you’re encountering is that you, like most historians, want an absolute term to categorise a wide group of peoples when the answer may simply be that they both are and aren’t similar to the rest of the Roman Empire.
1836492746 t1_j4y6q56 wrote
Reply to I think that the term Byzantines is rightly used for adressing the Eastern Roman Empire. by VipsaniusAgrippa25
I don’t know much about Roman history, but I only have this to offer: it’s tricky to decide how we categorise groups of peoples. Do we split them by race, religion, culture, customs, physical borders such as mountains, climates? The list is endless. The borders between actual peoples are blurred, whilst human-implemented borders such as states and countries and empires are forced and definite. You can’t tell A that they belong absolutely to A if their characteristics are blended with that of B. The problem you’re encountering is that you, like most historians, want an absolute term to categorise a wide group of peoples when the answer may simply be that they both are and aren’t similar to the rest of the Roman Empire.