Talk:Byzantine Empire

Roman Empire (Middle Ages)

I really, really dislike the name "Byzantine Empire". I'm quite sure many others agree with me that is misleading and simply wrong. Wikipedia doesn't seem to make its mind regarding this issue. Some articles call it "Roman" and others "Byzantine". There are many others who goes as far as to say that the Roman Empire died around 600 A.D. and "changed" to Byzantine Empire. Bullshit. We all know that.

I wonder why no one has thought on taking the far obvious and easier route. We should have one article called "Roman Empire" that would encompass everything from the rise of Augustus until 1453. Meanwhile, the article now called "Roman Empire" should be changed to "Roman Empire (Ancient Era)" and "Byzantine Empire" to "Roman Empire (Middle Ages)". It would resolve all issues in one simple way. Unfortunately, I'm quite aware that no one, perhaps a few might agree with me. --Lecen (talk) 12:46, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

While I'd love to see the article named something like Eastern Roman Empire ('Roman Empire (Middle Ages)' does not properly describe the topic of this article), see WP:COMMONNAME.
—Sowlos (talk) 13:09, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

While the current term is hardly ideal, the renaming problem has some problems of its own. The distinction point between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages is not universally agreed. Where would we place the transition point between the two articles? --Dimadick (talk) 13:34, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Constantinople was founded in the early 4th century (this is the date usually used as the beginning of the Eastern Roman Empire). The Middle ages began in 476. This means that most of the existence of the Eastern Roman Empire (simply Roman Empire after the Western fell) was during the Middle Ages (476-1453). Thus, anyone interested upon learning about the history of the Roman Empire from its creation when Augustus rose to power until the end of the Ancient Era (476) will look for the article "Roman Empire (Ancient Era)". From 476 until 1453 the reader would look for "Roman Empire (Middle Ages)". Of course this latter article would actually begin in the early 300s. For a complete view of the Roman Empire from its foundation in 27 B.C. until 1453 A.D. we would have "Roman Empire". We could go even further, perhaps:

• "Rome (historical)" (for a complete overview from the Kingdom of Rome until 1453; it would replace Ancient Rome)"

• Roman Kingdom
• Roman Republic
• Roman Empire

• Roman Empire (Ancient Era) or Roman Empire (27 B.C.-476 A.D.)
• Roman Empire (Middle Ages) or Roman Empire (476 A.D. - 1453 A.D.)

These are merely suggestions. I don't want to force them on anyone at all. If that was the case I would have opened a move request. That's not the idea. I want at least a discussion about it. We need to talk about this issue and resolve it somehow. --Lecen (talk) 16:45, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

There's really no other way than what we currently have. Its the best of several really bad options. The history of the "Byzantine Empire" really begins as early as Diocletian's reign, which is very far from what we'd call "Middle Ages". Certainly by the end of Constantine's reign we have the begging of what historians refer to as the "Byzantine Empire". And the AD 476 arbitrary boundary does not apply to this state at all, or the entire Eastern Med for that matter.

Renaming to "Eastern Roman Empire" is very wrong indeed. Its just another fake term, only it doesn't apply to as long a period, and is far less used (practically unused after the middle state). This state did not consider itself to be the "Eastern Empire", it was the Empire.

The bottom line is that historiography overwhelmingly uses this term (and then apologizes for using it, but still uses it). -- Director (talk) 17:19, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

This has been debated long and hard over the years - those who are not aware of the history need to check the archives. Basically, consensus has been that the English language literature overwhelmingly supports Byzantine Empire per WP:COMMONNAME. I think the last time this was debated was when an RfC determined that History of the Eastern Roman Empire was moved to History of the Byzantine Empire 18 months ago.DeCausa (talk) 18:30, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

It seems we all agree that Byzantine Empire is not a good title for the article, but DIREKTOR (talk · contribs) rightly points out that there are no easy ways to fix it and to reiterate what DeCausa (talk · contribs) and I have said:

Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources.

— WP:COMMONNAME

This gives us few options outside of fake terms.

Barring any common name issues, I still don't consider renaming this article Roman Empire (Middle Ages) a suitable option. The focus of this article is the Roman Empire after the establishment of New Rome, before the Middle Ages.

The problem is one of common perspective. While it's hard to discern a dividing line, most people looking at the early 'Roman Empire' and late 'Byzantine Empire' see two distinct empires. This started with Western rulers separating the 'Greek Empire' from the 'Roman Empire', to which they claimed succession, and has been exasperated by the historical black hole in many people's memories about the start of the Dark Ages.

If this is really a problem you guys want resolved, I suggest re-framing the issue. Rather than choosing the best arbitrary division between the two 'halves' of the Empire - and what to name them, don't divide it as such. One article for the Roman Empire with sub-articles for each of its dynasties would do well. The Byzantine Empire article can simply focus on the terminology for the late Roman Empire and the socio-political issues around them. The only issue then would be what to list as the Empire's successor (the states of the Frankokratia or the Ottoman Empire).
—Sowlos (talk) 19:23, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken - that is the arrangement we already have. The Roman Empire article is the overview article, whereas this is an article dealing with a specific period and area of said Empire.

The important thing to keep in mind is that the simplified, "high-school" representation of the "fall of the Roman Empire" is plain wrong in many respects.

• 1) The Roman Empire was never divided into two states - it merely had two legal emperors (two imperial courts).
• 2) What we call the "Fall of the Roman Empire" in 476, was merely the western court being abolished.
• 3) After that point, the eastern court did not remain just the "eastern court" either: it became the sole imperial court of the Roman Empire. And contemporaries acknowledged this, universally. Even Odoacer, the very person who abolished the western court, immediately sent the western regalia to the east (informing Emperor Zeno that he's now the sole emperor of the Roman Empire).

At all times throughout late Roman history (even in the 14th century when it was really kind of pathetic), there persisted in the Roman mentality the world view of the "one world empire": one God, one emperor, one empire. There might be barbarian kings out there, but they're all sort of "ultimately" subordinate to the Emperor (the Holy Roman Empire was not recognized at all as a Roman Empire by the Byzantines, until the very end).

My point is that it is a serious error to simply say "the Roman Empire was divided into the Western Roman Empire, and the Eastern Roman Empire, and then the Western Empire fell, while the Eastern persisted", and organize the articles in accordance with that view. That's not how it went down. -- Director (talk) 19:55, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Then merge all the content of this article into the dynasties' articles, refocus this article into one of terminology, merge History of the Roman Empire and History of the Byzantine Empire and turn it into an index page, and lets be done with it.
—Sowlos (talk) 20:18, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Whoah. Can't say I agree with that. -- Director (talk) 20:23, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I think we have to be guided by how the academic world, particularly the English language literature, treats Roman and Byzantine historiography. It's very unusual, outside of Gibbon and Bury, to treat it as "one" topic. The English language convention of "Roman" going up to late antiquity and "byzantine" thereafter (with a messy blur at the boundary) is too well-established for WP not to follow it. DeCausa (talk) 20:29, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Precisely. This is an extremely well established term. As I said, its used practically universally. With a caveat and an apology, yes, but its used. And the caveat is in there, in the very first sentence: that's why I amended the lede to state this "is the Roman Empire". It is. But its called the "Byzantine Empire" during a period. -- Director (talk) 20:33, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

It's very unusual, outside of Gibbon and Bury, to treat it as "one" topic.

Then this discussion is over. We can't rename the article (again I point to the established WP guidelines) and if we can't refocus their topics, there is nothing we can do. Byzantine is the established term and everyone must simply 'bite the bullet'.
—Sowlos (talk) 20:35, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

If historians don't mind biting that bullet, neither should we. The lede already states that this is the Roman Empire, all I can think of in addition is perhaps a note to push it home? -- Director (talk) 20:37, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps we could also substitute most uses of Byzantine (out side of the lead and #Nomenclature) with Imperial, period, contemporary, etcetera; referring to the Byzantine Empire simply as the Empire (the reader will know which empire) to avoid reinforcing the Roman-Byzantine misunderstanding. That's the only other thing I can think of.
—Sowlos (talk) 21:00, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Byzantine empire is perfectly fine. There's nothing wrong with referring to it as such, and no more reason to compact it with the Roman Empire than with the Holy Roman Empire. After all, the western Roman Empire didn't really fall. It just suspended appointing emperors for a little spell. ;) Walrasiad (talk) 00:47, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

1. It's not being compacted with the Roman Empire when its administrative structure was a part of the Roman Empire and had primacy in the Empire near the end of the Western division's life.
2. The Western Empire did indeed collapse. The Holy Roman Empire was a separate state that claimed succession.

—Sowlos (talk) 02:47, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Depends whose line you want to follow. Rome itself never "fell". Up to the mid-8th C., it was still quite well inside the Roman empire. And Rome was always the one and only legal capital of the Roman Republic, and thus the whole empire; it was never moved, reduced or diminished in any partition. Even if emperor(s) might decide to reside in towns out in the provinces somewhere, Rome remained the capital. The Senate and People of Rome (SPQR) have primacy in the empire. Justinian's code recognizes the emperor has no legal basis without it ("Cum enim lege antiqua, quae regia nuncupabatur, omne ius omnisque potestas populi romani in imperatoriam translata sunt potestatem", Constitutio Deo Auctore, Dec. 530, Pref. to Digest). And since the Senate and People of Rome, channeled by the pope, elected and crowned the Holy Roman Emperor, therefore ... Walrasiad (talk) 03:29, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh no, not quite. Firstly, Rome was indeed under the control of a barbarian state between 476 and 536, so it did "fall". Secondly: Rome was always held in honor, but it lost its significance as a capital in the 3rd century, and by 476 it was a relatively small city compared to where it had been. It was just one of several regional capitals of Italy. Thirdly, the Senate of Rome was a joke ever since the Roman Revolution, and it was virtually irrelevant from that point onward. Whatever Justinian said pro forma, his power resided with the armies, just like every other emperor. The Roman emperors never depended upon the pope, the senate, or the people of Rome for their power (well there was Nerva, he was elected by the Senate, but even he was only tolerated by the armies because he appointed Trajan as his successor). -- Director (talk) 04:29, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, Ostrogoths were foederati, part of the Roman empire. If you want to insist that was an interruption, the Ostrogoths did not rule the west any longer than the Crusaders interrupted and ruled the east after 1204. If you're going to go by ethnicity or language, then Byzantium ceased being ruled by ethnic, Latin-speaking Romans by 620s. Secondly, Rome as never a regional capital. Ravenna was. In all the partitions, no emperor held Rome - it was the capital of all the empire, the capital held by all the emperors jointly and none in particular. The regional seat the western empire varied (Milan, then Ravenna), much like the eastern (Nicomedia or Constantinople), but the capital of the whole was Rome and remained Rome. Thirdly, the "Senate and People of Rome" means everything; it is the constitutional foundation of the Roman empire, the legal source of the Emperor's powers as first citizen, his investiture by the lictores of the Republic, etc. If you're saying it stopped meaning anything after Justinian, then you're effectively suggesting that Byzantium ceased being part of the Roman empire after Justinian, and seceded off as an independent oriental monarchy under a foreign king - or to use the Greek word for king, a basileus. The Roman Republic, not the Armenian army, is the legal creator of Roman emperors. Roman republic continued in Rome, until it decided to elect a new emperor, a Holy Roman one. Walrasiad (talk) 10:11, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Whoah.. Oh dear :). There are more errors there than I can reply to, you definitely need to separate legal formality from de facto reality.

• The Roman Empire never granted their supposed "foederati" control over Italy: Odoacer, Theodoric, the Ostrogoths, and all the rest were entirely and completely independent of the Empire (de facto). Yes almost everybody in the Empire was technically a subject of the Emperor - on paper, but that's nothing but formality. So yes, I want to insist on the "interruption", just like every historian on the planet [1].±
• Yes, thank you for your wonderful insight regarding Ravenna, but I was talking about "regional capitals" in Italy. What I meant was that Rome, aside from being "held in honor", was no more prominent than any larger city in Italy (Milan, Ravenna, Naples, etc.) It was not the de facto capital of the Roman Empire since the 3rd century, or even arguably since the Severans. The Roman Empire had no legal (de iure) "capital", all there is are the de facto capitals.
• The "Senate and People of Rome" is formal ("legal") gibberish: it means nothing, and you clearly need to catch-up on your Roman history. The de facto source of the power of any Roman emperor (Augustus and on through 1204) - was the Roman military. Even as early as the Year of the Four Emperors, emperors and pretenders actually counted their reign from the year of their proclamation as emperor by their troops - not from their confirmation by the Senate. And that's the principate. Since the 3rd century onwards, even the pretense was dropped. As such, the Byzantine Empire, under Justinian and on, is exactly the continuation of the Roman Empire (but we all know that).
• @"If you're saying it stopped meaning anything after Justinian, then you're effectively suggesting that Byzantium ceased being part of the Roman empire after Justinian, and seceded off as an independent oriental monarchy under a foreign king - or to use the Greek word for king, a basileus." - Oh dear again. "βασιλεύς" means "sovereign" (not "king", not then at least) and it was actually adopted by Heraclius after his defeat of the Persians, in order to demonstrate that he was now the βασιλεύς, which was previously the name the Empire used for the Sassanid Shah.
• @"The Roman Republic, not the Armenian army, is the legal creator of Roman emperors." - "Armenian Army"? The "creator of the Roman emperors" was the army, i.e. their troops. That's it. All else is legalistic nonsense. The "Roman Republic" did not elect or "create" the emperor, he was forced upon the Senate. Read a bit about the Roman Revolution.
• @"Roman republic continued in Rome, until it decided to elect a new emperor, a Holy Roman one." - Complete nonsense. The "Roman Republic" is an arbitrary historiographic term, nothing else. That which historians choose to call the Roman Republic died in the Roman Revolution, when (to simplify the thing) those who controlled the Roman military forced the Senate and the entire state to accept them as their absolute rulers. To say that the "Roman Republic elected the Holy Roman emperors" is the weirdest thing I read in months. The pope's (not your imaginary "republic"'s!) proclamation of Charlemagne as supposed "emperor" was literally laughed at by the Romans, who considered it absolutely ridiculous and offensive. The Pope had no legal right imaginable to declare someone an "emperor". But you clearly consider the pope a ruler of some kind of imaginary "Roman Republic" which "persisted through the ages".

Most erroneous statements from above are just derived from literal acceptance of meaningless legalities, some of them are out of touch with the legal situation also, and some are just strange :) -- Director (talk) 11:00, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

(1) No more and no greater interruption than the Latin Empire of 1204. Weaker even, for we actually have documents where the Ostrogoths are recognized as legitimate holders of Roman agency.

(2) Roman empire most definitely had a de jure capital - it is all over their juridical instruments. Rome was not the "regional capital" in Italy ever. It was always Milan or Ravenna. The Tetrarchy agreement of 293, which placed the empire under four emperors, was clear about Rome being the one, united, joint capital of the entire Roman empire, the seat of SPQR, the source for the authority of all emperors. The so-called regional or imperial capitals - Trier, Milan, Sirmium and Nicomedia - were nothing more than military HQ for an individual regional emperor. The common capital, Rome, was jointly owned by all, which no emperor could claim as his own. That never changed.

(3) the SPQR is the "legal gibberish" that defines Rome, it's what makes Rome Rome, it is what makes Roman citizens, etc. The partition between "Roman Republic" and "Roman Empire" is an invention of modern historians to conviently partition two political phases of a single continuous state. Down to the end, Roman emperors were legally nothing more than first citizens of the Roman Republic. If you sever the connection with SPQR, you sever the connection with ancient Rome. In short, you cease being part of the Roman empire. So if you're suggesting SPQR didn't matter in Byzantine empire, then that only reinforces that the Byzantine empire is not the Roman empire, but merely a seceded state under new rulers, a state without "citizens" of a Roman Republic, but only with "subjects" of the King of Byzantium.

(4) "Basileus" is Greek for king, a tribal leader, the equivalent of the Latin Rex. The Greek translation of Latin Imperator is Autokrator. And Greek-language documents in the Roman Empire era used Autokrator to denote emperor. Heraclius's taking on the Basileus designation, took it and used it in its tribal sense, as a "King of the Romans" (tribal chief of some tribe he called the Romani), and not an imperator of the Roman Republic.

(5) Roman law, Roman institutions, Roman everything, depends on SPQR. It doesn't depend on the army - indeed, what were the four letters that the Roman army carried? Ah, yes, SPQR. That's the controlling legal authority. Continuity passes through it, and always passed through it, formally and legally. It may not always be particularly effective in contradicting the will of the Emperor - but SQPR appointed him, and invested him, with the lictores of the republic doing the ceremony. The Justinian code itself recognizes the Emperor's edicts have no legal power themselves, save by the power of SQPR which is lent to him by them. Dispense with the "legal gibberish" of SPQR at your own risk - as it only reinforces the fact that you're not the continuity of the Roman polity. That some provincial despot on the Bosphorus decides to parade himself as King of the Romans is no more meaningful than the myriad of other Roman Emperors, proclaimed by their armies, out in Britain, Spain, Sicily, Mauretania and Numidia. SPQR is in Rome, channeled by the Bishop of Rome, and the Holy Roman Emperor a more legitimate Roman Emperor than the King of the Romani or the Emperor of Hispania.

(6) If you find usurpation of the SPQR authority by the pope, cardinals, senate and people of Rome, de facto rulers of Rome, descended from Senatorial families from before the time of the emperors, is "laughable" by your criteria, then usurpation of the SPQR authority by a myriad of palace eunuchs and Armenian bodyguards in Constantinople must be even more laughable.

(7) Clearly I can't be out of touch with the legal realities of the age, for those were the realities quoted by the Pope and he had a pretty ample stable of legal scholars. :) What I might be out of touch with is modern military fanboism, which thinks of the Roman Empire as nothing more than guys in armor who beat on barbarians, and overlooks pretty much the remainder of Roman institutions. ;) Walrasiad (talk) 12:04, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Right, this is getting into WP:TLDR and WP:NOTFORUM territory, so I won't be responding in full. I will say, though, that imo you're missing some pretty HUGE chunks there, and that you need to distance yourself somewhat and view Roman history without those ideological glasses. Clearly, you appear to be operating with quite a few serious misconceptions. I could understand someone being unaware of certain facts, but I must say I'm startled that one might defend such blatantly erroneous assertions (the emperor was the "fist citizen down to the end"?? absolutely not!, not even on paper). I advise you to do some additional reading. To say the very least: you're way outside of mainstream historiography. That's me signing off (before I go into WP:NPA territory as well ;)).

If you'd care to continue the discussion, we could take this to your talkpage. I just don't think it would be appropriate to clog the talkpage here. -- Director (talk) 13:24, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Aw shucks. I had already compiled a pile of Greek & Latin documents to reinforce the case. That said, my purpose here is not ideological, but anti-ideological, to the proposal being made. Just demonstrating that there are other views of the matter, particularly at the time, that the assumption that this was the "Roman Empire" in Middle Ages was not and is not universally held. For starters, the entire history of the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire is ranged against it. The matter isn't as straightforward or as "obvious" as many people here seem to assume it is. The term "Byzantine Empire" does the job well enough to circumscribe and handle the entity in its own right. Which is why historians use it. It is not a "lamentable mistake", but a way to carefully handle a tricky topic, and avoid entering into polemical and questionable areas of dispute. Trying to mindlessly and forcefully impose its identification as "the" Roman Empire is going to revive those POV polemics, and likely mar the encyclopedic value of the article. Walrasiad (talk) 14:14, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

No nonsense arguments based on your own interpretation of primary sources, please. Read historians, Walrasiad, not ancient primary documents you could not interpret in their context even if you had a degree in history (you'd still need the specialization). Forgive me for saying so, but your position is largely out of touch with historiography, and as such should probably be discounted altogether. -- Director (talk) 14:47, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Map & insignia

What I think needs addressing (if I can turn attention to that issue), is the really bad state of the infobox. We have Justinian the Great's empire on the map, with the Palaeologan emblems right on top of it. Now that is just wrong, in my opinion: a thousand-year discrepancy. And on top of that, its a debatable point whether the Palaeologan state (i.e. the state post-1204) is indeed the "Byzantine Empire proper". I recommend changing either the map or the insignia.

In my personal view, we should keep the insignia and the map concurrent, and we should use Basil II's empire as the most representative of the "zenith" of this state. A solidus from the period might be a far more appropriate emblem. -- Director (talk) 18:57, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

We've had this discussion before. I understand the issue to be in picking a period most representative this 1000+ year long empire's 'zenith' for the map. With such an issue in mind, it does seem sensible to me to simply have a map showing all lands that ever fell within its borders (its technical and easily established zenith).

As for the discrepancy. I agree. The haphazard state of that infobox is somewhat silly. In my opinion, using a single dynastic emblem of such a long lived empire is the problem. Also, the Byzantine empire did not have coat of arms or modern state symbol, like modern states, for most its history. We had a similar discussion at Talk:Roman Empire#Labarum.
—Sowlos (talk) 20:51, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

The ideal situation, I think, is to have .SVG coins concurrent with the map representing both (though I confess I for one really like the baubles at RE and don't want to get rid of them entirely :)).

As regards the map, well, there we're back at the question of what exactly is the "Byzantine Empire"? I've read several historians on the history of this state (Madden e.g.), and while they all certainly do include Justinian's reign, they all also refer to the golden age and zenith of the "Byzantine Empire" as being under the Macedonians [2], more specifically Basil II's reign. Its another one of these sort of contradictions, but I tend to agree with that view. The "real" golden age and peak of what is definitely more the Byzantine Empire is Basil II's reign. -- Director (talk) 21:05, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

The ideal situation, I think, is to have .SVG coins...
— User:DIREKTOR

Pick an image and I'll vector it (if no one else can).

As regards the map, well, there we're back at the question of what exactly is the "Byzantine Empire"?
— User:DIREKTOR

Perhaps an animated GIF with one frame per dynasty would be best?
—Sowlos (talk) 21:12, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Why doesn't someone just create an evolutionary map like the one on Mongol Empire showing the territorial changes through the entire length of the Empire's history.--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 05:40, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

It already exists - I suggested it in the earlier thread but no no one else liked animated maps. The hallmark of the Byz. Emp. is its cycles of decline-renewal-decline etc so I think it's particularly apposite here. DeCausa (talk) 07:34, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

That's what I suggested just above. It seems our choices are between maps of its territorial apex and evolution. I agree with you and DeCausa, that a GIF is the best solution. The Empire was too long lived, the equivalent of several empires. No single-frame image can truly be truly 'representative' of the Empire.
—Sowlos (talk) 01:03, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Four years ago, in 2008, I strongly recommended that we had the map of the empire under Basil II. I still think this is the best idea because during his reign the empire was it its peak, economically, culturally and geographically (after the era of Justinian of course). I find no reason to stick to the geographical expansion of the empire inder Justinian while the era of Basil is thought to be the peak of the empire. Dimboukas (talk) 01:49, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I second this. Anyone studying Byzantine history is likely to have heard of this as the "golden age", the summit of the Byzantine Empire. -- Director (talk) 04:37, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

You mean you first it.;)

To properly resolve this issue, we need to establish the purpose of the map. Is it to show the full footprint, golden age borders, or final borders. This isn't an issue for every former country. Often, two or three of these points roughly coincide or one lasted long enough to be considered the traditional borders. If only the Byzantine Empire had it that easy.

I prefer an animated GIF. I agree with DeCausa, the borders of the Empire breathed too much for any single map to be truly representative.
—Sowlos (talk) 06:09, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Well no, the man suggested it in 2008. I second it :) -- Director (talk) 07:03, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I like the word "breathed". The lung-like like flexing of its boundaries is the biggest point if one thinks about Byzantium's territoriality over a 1000 years: animation is uniquely appropriate for this article. DeCausa (talk) 07:10, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Read the archives people. This has been discussed time and time again. The map for the infobox is the Justinian 565 map because that is when the so-called Byzantine Empire/Eastern Roman Empire was at its largest territorially. Just because you think the times of Basil II epitomize your idea of the maximum extent of the empire better doesn't make it so. GIF maps are not preferred in infoboxes, keep GIFs in the body of the article.--Tataryn77 (talk) 19:30, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Its not our opinion, its the sources. -- Director (talk) 19:48, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid there is a political continuum from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, when the only Roman Empire left in existence was based on Byzantium and was therefore "Byzantine," to 1204. As the state continued throughout this period then it's greatest territorial extent was around 565. If you wanted 1025 as the apex then you would have to split the article into two parts: the "Late Antique Byzantine Empire" and the "Medieval Byzantine Empire." I think we all realise that this is not going to happen. As for a symbol that unites most periods then the toupha is a good candidate. It was a helmet-crown symbolising victory, with a peacock-feather crest. Justinian I wore it on his now lost equestrian statue, and it is shown on a Byzantine textile of the 11th century. Urselius (talk) 20:47, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Its not my idea. Its a little strange to me too, but the fact is this is what historians say. The "golden age" of the Byzantine Empire was during Basil II's reign. But I myself would not mind any solution - just as long as we remove the absurdly misleading state of affairs in the infobox. The insignia (or images used in that capacity) and the map need to match, and if not "match", then they should at least not be separated by a thousand years. -- Director (talk) 20:52, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

If the subject matter covers a thousand years then it is fitting that the infobox reflects this. However, I think two images solely from the latest period is misleading, perhaps the Chi-Rho, or an image of the labarum itself could be introduced to show an early symbol, and the double-headed eagle as a late symbol be retained. It is probably not beyond human wit to produce a three colour map showing the borders in 565, 1025 and 1400. Urselius (talk) 21:43, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

It would be great if the infobox could convey two or even three(!) periods, but it was not designed to do this. This type of infobox template usually displays a concurrent map and insignia, or a map an insignia that are at least from the same millennium - not a map and insignia from two periods which (aside from being a thousand years apart) are mutually incomparable. The flag and coa were from a period when the "Empire" was a tiny, impoverished, embattled, and relatively insignificant city-state, whereas the map displays a world power. To add to this, it is debateable whether the Palaeologan state can be truly considered the Byzantine (Roman) Empire, or whether that state ended quite a while back, splintering for good in 1204. -- Director (talk) 22:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

@Director,
I also touched on this at Talk:Roman Empire. I don't think {{Infobox former country}} is suitable for many ancient empires, kingdoms, and such. The former country infobox makes many assumptions that are true for only for the modern form of states. The map variable, for instance, is made with the assumption that a state's borders are fixed enough for one image to show what the state looked like. If you can conceive a better way for the infobox itself to handle things, we can make it.

@Urselius,
I must agree and I've been trying not sound like a broken record (repeating that again and again). The Empire lasted for over 1000 years. We need to represent that.

@Tataryn77,
We don't even need to go as far as the archives. This issue was also raised in a topic further up this page. The problem is many people still aren't comfortable with the state of the infobox.

GIFs aren't preferred anywhere, no just within infoboxes. SVGs and PNGs for images that can't be vectored are the preferred options. However, there are occasions when animated images are needed and GIFs allow for that.
—Sowlos (talk) 01:34, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

intro

My edits to the introduction were not substantial changes but moves and merges. I intended to merge some of the information into related paragraphs, I believe for an FA article the intro was a bit drawn out into seperate sections and could have been condensed as it mostly runs through the formation and culture of the Empire, its nomenclature and then a run down of its history. For example I removed Fall of Constantinpole in the lead to make it "existing for more than a thousand years until 1453." Because it was already mentioned and hyperlinked in the last paragraph and makes for a nice finish when the Ottomans takeover. I moved "During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe" to the last sentence of the first introduction paragraph as it makes a good opening. Please let me know what you think and input is appreciated thanks. --JTBX (talk) 19:40, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I find your edits an improvement, and will reinstate them. The lead was fragmented into many small paragraphs, and flows much better when they're merged. There's still a bit of duplication, but that can be sorted out.

Since when do we need "consensus approval" for an edit? This is against wiki spirit. A previous version is not a Holy Grail, even if it is a FA. WP:BRD applies, but R should include a comment what exactly is wrong with an edit. No such user (talk) 14:11, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

• Consensus is the very basis of Wikipedia procedure. Without it this site would be nothing but edit wars.
• It was removed and no one complained. It could be interoperated that consensus was against the removed content, which JTBX wanted to restore.
• I gave my reason for the revert in my edit summary.
• This is an FA class article. 'Featured articles...are used by editors as examples for writing other articles' and are 'distinguished by professional standards of writing, presentation, and sourcing.' Violate WP:FA? and the article risks demotion. While no user needs permission to edit even an FA, large changes that still need subsequent fixing should be worked out prior to committing them. That is what talk pages and sandboxes are for.
  —Sowlos (talk) 04:09, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but we do not need consensus prior to making an edit, especially a small-scale one. And I don't think that JTBX's changes were large-scale ones -- just reordering and merging of paragraphs and removal of duplicates. Yannismarou, above, also complained about the Yes, maybe he could have used the sandbox or the talk page, but I don't think it was necessary in this case. I re-read the lead after the edit and haven't found any significant errors introduced, thought it is better organized, and thus felt it was an improvement overall. It possibly needs some additional tweaking (e.g. Greek nature of the empire is stated two or three times in different words), but even the previous version had the same problem?

And, if I may ask, what previously removed content he restored? "In 1453"? Why is this contentious? Surely, the year when the Empire ceased to exist is so important that it deserves mention in the lead. What was disputed above was which state was the successor of the Empire, not the date, as far as I can tell. No such user (talk) 08:17, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Coat of arms

What is going on with the coat of arms image in the infobox? Opposition was raised against the long standing image; no one on the talk page disagreed; the coat of arms variable was cleared and then later replaced with a solidus coin (based on similar discussion at Talk:Roman Empire); after a few confused reverts, I cleared the image again (figuring there was not yet clear consensus on a replacement); now it's back.

It has been cycling through:

• 
  Emblem of the Palaiologos dynasty, SVG
• 
  Jesus depicted on a Justinian (II) solidus
• 
  Emblem of the Palaiologos dynasty, JPG

Opinions please.
—Sowlos (talk) 09:42, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Broken Link

The link at the bottom of the page under "Byzantine Empire Topics" → "Military" → "Navy" goes instead to the army page. MarkoPolo56 (talk) 21:20, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Byzantine or Roman? decide already

You guys need to decide what are you gonna call this empire, whenever I come to this site, I constant change of names of byzantine empire to roman empire then back to byzantine empire. Please for the love of any deity, just decide a name. Just quit the back and forth, just make it permanent, we all know its the eastern roman empire, as it was in the time Diocletian, Constantine, and Theodosius,and same goes for you taking byzantine senate from the raster. Just make up your minds. And by the way, its the roman empire, a the people did not call it byzantine.Xherin (talk) 02:46, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

The empire's true name is Roman Empire. However given that the Roman Empire is one of the world's longest-lived empires ever existed, as it existed for over 1500+ years, this adds to confusion especially to those who refer to different time periods of it, such as the late Roman Empire and the early Roman Empire. Due to this, the historians today refer to the late period of the empire as the "Byzantine". So there is no really perfect option.--SilentResident (talk) 06:43, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Bah, no, it's simple. All one needs is an understanding of the concepts of then and now (if you don't know what "then" and "now" mean, ask Grover, he's good at explaining things like that). The name of a thing is what people call that thing. Right? So, people used to call this thing the Roman Empire, back then. So its name was "Roman Empire", then. Today they call it the Byzantine Empire. So, now, its name is "Byzantine Empire". Since we are writing this article now, and not then, we'll call it by what its name is, not by what its name was. See? It's easy. "Then" and "now" are not the same thing. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:38, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Guys! let's just call it eastern roman empire (and byzantine empire on top of the map) since there's a west. And why take away the byzantine senate from it. Xherin (talk) 23:19, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

1. As the lead clearly states, the article refers to more than the eastern half of an emipre split down the middle.
2. WP:COMMONNAME

—Sowlos 03:34, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. WP:COMMONNAME. It's getting really really annoying and disruptive that some people will keep bringing up these inane renaming ideas, for the thousandth time. As for mentioning the senate (I assume Xherin means the "legislature" field in the disinfobox), it's equally simple: the senate didn't make the laws in Byzantium, so it wasn't a legislature. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:50, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Its like asking "Apple or Fruit? decide already". The term "Roman" includes the term "Byzantine". Something (empire or whatever) can be "Roman" without being "Byzantine", but nothing can be "Byzantine" without being "Roman", in a more general sense. "Byzantine" = "Roman, during a certain period". That's all. -- Director (talk) 19:05, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Ref formatting and editing speed

Saving any edit to this page, or checking any diff in its history, currently takes at least half a minute for me. I find this is prohibitively slow; it makes normal editing and monitoring edit history almost impossible.

The speed problem is apparently caused by the high number of cite templates used in this page. It's been known for a while that citation templates slow down big pages. Somebody recently tried to develop a slimmed-down alternative to these templates that promised to be faster, but he was shouted down by people who somehow didn't like the idea.

I'd like to invite opinions on what to do to bring this page back to normal editability:

1. Do nothing and just accept the slowness?
2. Try those new fast cite templates (even though some people have stamped them as "deprecated")?
3. Replace the {cite...}-formatted refs with flat wikitext (using manually inserted {{anchor}}s to make the Harvard-style crossreferencing work?

Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:44, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Could you link to this new cite template (I'm not sure I'm seeing it on WP:CITET) and also to the discussion on it. Thanks. DeCausa (talk) 14:58, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

The basic template is at {{fcite}}. The page links to a discussion at WP:TFD, but if I remember correctly that wasn't the only debate – there was quite a bit of shouting also on Jimbo Wales' talkpage and several other places. From what I gather, the complaint was not so much that the new template couldn't deliver on its promise of greater speed – apparently it could –, nor that it wouldn't work, but merely that it didn't offer some of the more exotic capabilities of the normal templates, and that people generally didn't like the idea of having a competing new set forked off. But as far as I'm aware nobody has so far made any progress on reaching a comparable amount of speed increase on the old templates. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:05, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Started reading the TFD discussion...and very quickly lost interest. Don't really understand the objections to it, but if the consensus was "not to be deployed" (as it seems to have been) is it still open to editors on a particular article to adopt it? The e.g. given in the template didn't include author and page no. but I assume those paramaters can be added. If so, and it is faster to load, can't really see why there should be any issue about using it. But if we can get ndash's and the v. The going to arbcom, anything can happpen here... DeCausa (talk) 15:27, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I haven't looked too closely into the details of what is or isn't possible with those templates yet, but I'd say it's worth a try. If people here are interested in trying out alternatives, I'd suggest setting up alternative sandbox versions of the article to test them. As for being "allowed" or not to use them, WP:CONSENSUS and WP:CITEVAR applies per article – if we here come to an agreement that the present state of the article is unsatisfactory and that want this or that alternative, who is to stop us? As I said, an alternative to the fcite system would be to not use templates at all but simply manually formatted flat wikitext. I don't really see what would be wrong with that either. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:33, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree on the general point on the speed of opening tha article. If the citations are the problem, my vote would go with the {{fcite}} rather than the manual option, to help keep citatation style consistent, subject to the template having parameters for author, page no. and ISBN as well. On a parallel point it's become a rather large and unwieldy article - I'm not sure it was quite as it is now when it got the FA. DeCausa (talk) 19:40, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I've put up test versions under User:Future Perfect at Sunrise/sandbox, one with the present system unchanged, one with the fcite system, and one with flat wikitext. (All changes are meant to affect only the {{cite}} entries in the reference list; the footnotes themselves continue to use Harvard links with {{harvnb}} etc.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:17, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I started out with just mechanically replacing all "cite" with "fcite" instances, leaving the parameters all unchanged, and the first impression was that the output is pretty much the same and works quite well. Here are a few observations on some minor differences and possible quirks or limitations. The fcite templates...

1. printed a superfluous space character for a "cite journal" entry that was lacking volume/issue/page information. (see Adena 2008 entry, now removed in article). Not a serious loss: Journal entries should always have those parameters; otherwise they shouldn't use "cite journal" in the first place.
2. prints two spaces rather than just one between journal name and volume if journal does not also have publisher info set (see Antonucci 1993 entry and others). Slightly annoying, but only a cosmetic problem.
3. omits wikilink on second author name (see Ahrweiler & Laiou 1998 entry). Not a serious loss.
4. misprints month+year combinations (see Angelov 2001 entry). Not a problem: month ought to be simply left out; not part of standard academic citation practice anyway.
5. {{fcite encyclopedia}} doesn't understand "encyclopedia=" parameter. (see Baynes 1907 entry). Workaround: replace "encyclopedia=" with "work=".
6. omits editor in entry that has both an author and an editor (see Blume 2008 entry). Not a serious loss in this case (second person can simply be listed as a second author without loss of academic correctness). May be problematic for some entries in "primary sources" section though (e.g. Innocence III entries). Workaround: just stick with old cite template for those particular entries.
7. For chapters in edited collected volumes, fcite renders the editors as "Averil Cameron, Bryan Ward-Perkins and Michael Whitby; ed.", while cite has no "ed." mark at all (see Cameron 2000 entry). In this, the fcite is actually superior (these names ought to be marked as being editors, not authors), although the semicolon strikes me as suboptimal.
8. For translated works, fcite renders "(Greek [translated from the original by Giorgos Tzimas])", while cite has "(in Greek [translated from the original by Giorgos Tzimas])". Insignificant difference.

(There might be more; I haven't gone through the whole list yet.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:00, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Performance test

Preliminary performance test results on the three sandbox versions (times reported are pure server-side processing times, as reported at the bottom of the page html source on loading an edit preview). Actual page rendering time in your browser will be higher depending on connection and browser speed.

version	full article	reference section alone
Old version with normal {{cite}}	c.17–19 seconds	c.11–12 seconds
Test version with {{fcite}}	c.11–12 seconds	c.5 seconds
Test version with manual wikitext	c.7–8 seconds	c.1.5 seconds

The performance gain on the whole page is not quite as strong as promised, but that's probably because the body text still contains all the {{harvnb}} templates, which are also relatively heavy in terms of parser functions. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:59, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Seeing no further objections here, I have provisionally made the transition to fcite. The improvement in speed is not earthshattering, but noticeable. If problems are found and people want to go back to cite, please don't do it through a mechanical revert to the prior version, because there are now also further corrections and tweaks. Instead, simply take the current version and replace all "{{fcite " with "{{cite "; that should move cleanly back.

I've seen some indications that {{cite}} might soon be fixed, as people have been working on porting its implementation to a new and faster scripting language which is expected to be deployed soon; once that happens we should obviously migrate back, which will be easy. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:29, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Other reference tweaks

By the way, independently of the issue of the general citation system, I would also propose getting rid of some clutter in the references:

1. routine googlebooks links on all book titles, where they are not useful for supporting specific quotations (these are harmful, because in pdf output mode the templates will add all these unnecessary and clumsy URLs as extra overt strings to the end of the entry)
2. publisher and place info on journal names (universal academic citing practice is to use only the journal name alone, unless there is some problem of ambiguity etc.)
3. country names added to publishing places (as in "Oxford, United Kingdom" – I think our readers know where Oxford is.)
4. chapter titles in monographs (i.e. when the whole book is by the same author)

Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:00, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I've just removed the fcite templates, by replacing them with the standard templates (not reverting) It seems not to have caused any problems. There was a discussion last year on them as a set, Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_July_15#Template:Fcite, and the decision was that they should be kept but not used in article space, and notices added to that effect. They should now make no difference anyway. The traditional templates, {{cite book}} etc., have been reimplemented as Lua modules and are much faster than before.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 23:57, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Periodization

There were a few inconsistencies between the "important dates" mentioned in the lead as relevant for the periodization of "Byzantium" vs. "Ancient Rome", and the timeline entries in the "Historical Era" part of the infobox. The lead paragraph mentioned:

• 285 (partition under Diocletian)
• 324 (transfer of capital)
• 610–641 (reign of Heraclius)

Meanwhile, the infobox had:

• 285 (partition under Diocletian)
• 330 (foundation of Constantinople)
• 395 (death of Theodosius)
• 476 (end of Western Empire)
• plus, in the "Religion" section: 380 (Christian state religion)

I've tried to clarify the 324 vs. 330 thing in the lead by changing it to "between 324 and 330" (I gather 324 was when he made the decision to move, and it took 6 years to build, with 330 being the official inauguration of the new city). I've also added a sentence to the lead about Theodosius and the shift to Christianity, covering the 380/395 period, but without narrowing it down to one specific date. I think, in the long run, a cleaner solution might be to shorten the coverage in the lead to something like:

…there is no single date of transition. The beginnings of Byzantium are conventionally dated to either [NNN, the date of XXX<ref...>], [NNN, the date of YYY<ref...>], or [NNN, the date of ZZZ<ref...>]…

and then have an extra section further down titled "Periodization", which could discuss the significance of each of these dates in more detail (along with other temporal cutoff points for the later developments as well as for the empire's end). Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:22, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Forced image sizes

A recent edit has brought it to my attention that all thumbnails in the article have forced sizes. According to MOS:IMAGES#Forced image size, "as a general rule, images should not be set to a larger fixed size than the 220px default".
The 400px thumbnails make sense. They are images that need to be set much wider than normal. But, what about the others? Why do they all need to be set 30px wider than the default?  —Sowlos  08:56, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Use/mention mismatch in title, again

For the umpteenth time, I've had to correct the glaring grammatical use-mention mismatch in the lead sentence, which somebody had again (for the umpteenth time) changed to the nonsensical "The Byzantine Empire is a term ...". People, this is simply wrong, grammatically. Can't you see it? An empire is not a term. An empire is a thing. Things have names, but things are not names. "Byzantine Empire" (in quotes) is a term. The Byzantine Empire (without quotes) was not a term, but a thing. If you want to stress the fact that the name is a later coinage, for chrissake do so, but do so in a way that grammatically makes sense. (Although the way it is now, with the disclaimer coming right next, in the third sentence, seems absolutely sufficient to me. There is no need to take lead fixation to the absurd extreme of having to cram that information into the very first sentence at all costs. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:03, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Good points. I agree. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 07:08, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• It was this edit and this edit. I tried to revert him, but I'm afraid gave up as I wasn't in the mood at the time for an argument with an editor who knew the "truth". Sorry about that. DeCausa (talk) 08:30, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The intro sentence

Today, Future Perfect at Sunrise reverted the lead's introductory sentence to a previous state. I undid this as an undiscussed change to the current status quo. DeCausa subsequently reverted my revert and referred me to "the talk page discussion begun by Fut. Perf." Dubiousness of defending a user's actions by referring to their own discussion notwithstanding, I'm not sure what discussion that is; the only discussions I can find started by Fut.Purf. were about the (dis)infobox. However I did find in the above this:

The name of a thing is what people call that thing. Right? So, people used to call this thing the Roman Empire, back then. So its name was "Roman Empire", then. Today they call it the Byzantine Empire. So, now, its name is "Byzantine Empire". Since we are writing this article now, and not then, we'll call it by what its name is, not by what its name was. See? It's easy. "Then" and "now" are not the same thing.
— User:Fut.Perf.

No one is disputing the current name of the Byzantine Empire, but to avoid explaining that it is the current name is misleading for readers and encourages borderline vandalism from the more impulsive editors. However, to say "the Byzantine Empire wasn't a term. It was a thing." seems silly to me and moot. Two sentences later the lead calls the "Byzantine Empire" a "historiographical term" and in the next paragraph it states "the distinction between "Roman" and "Byzantine" is a modern convention." To change the lead for calling a term "a term" while leaving all other mentions of it being a term doesn't make much sense to me.

Also, to say "the Byzantine Empire (or Byzantium) was the continuation of the Roman Empire..." is not completely accurate. There is no single definition of when the Byzantine Empire started (a fact also reflected in the lead). It is most commonly defined as either the eastern component of the Roman Empire after its partition (which survived the West's collapse) or the late continuation of the Empire.  —Sowlos  13:31, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

You are not getting the point. Do you understand the logical difference between the following two expressions?

  (a) The Byzantine Empire was ...
  (b) "Byzantine Empire" is ...

Hint (since you seem to be interested in C++ programming): it's analogous to the difference between the following:

  char x;
  char *x;

It's simply a logical mismatch. Nothing to do with POV, nothing to do with content. Just a simple, straightforward point of logic and grammar. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:39, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Also, Sowlos, the thread in question is immediately above this one! Talk:Byzantine Empire#Use/mention mismatch in title, again. Fut. Perf. opened it earlier today. As you can see it shows myself and another editor supporting what Fut. Perf. did. Plus, the opening, as Fut. Perfect changed it to was basically like that for months. One editor, without discussion, changed it on 6 March 2013. Future Perfect restored the consensus version. DeCausa (talk) 13:44, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

This affair has started with a similar formulation since early January 2013

The Byzantine Empire (or Byzantium) is the name historians have given to the Roman Empire

And it is novel, non-standard formulation clearly against long-held consensus for this featured article. It had been reverted back then also. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 14:57, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I also notice that the the editor of this change on 6 March 2013 is a newly-created account whose first edit was to continue the edit that was reverted since January. This is interesting. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 15:09, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Do you understand the logical difference between the following two expressions?

1. As a programmer, I too understand the temptation to make such distinctions based on syntax, but that's not how humans communicate. The syntax for written English is far less precise then any programming language. For example, the article Et cetera begins by stating "Et cetera … is a Latin expression that means …". It does not place the phrase in quotes and is by no means the only one. I doubt you have gone on a mission to correct the grammar in all articles which clearly focus on terminology and I would venture a guess that it's because it doesn't look out of place. For better or worse, humans determine intended meaning from our ambiguous languages based on context. If that were not so, we would read unstyled markup to access the full semantic value of content and avoid all ambiguity.
2. What we call the Byzantine Empire is indeed a thing, but it has a name. That name is the "Byzantine Empire". Remember, "the map is not the territory". Discussing a name before what it represents is not a sin.

… the thread in question is immediately above this one!

Apparently, my browser search function failed me (perhaps a spelling mistake) and so did my watchlist page. I've reduced this section to a subsection of the above.

… the opening, as Fut. Perfect changed it to was basically like that for months. One editor, without discussion, changed it on 6 March 2013.

Yes. After reviewing the logs, I remember that. The lead had been suffering from a series of POV motivated edits. After that last reversion, I was the one who copy-edited it — "A rewording of its earlier state for accuracy with its redundancies removed" — in the hopes of finding a more delicate wording that would not only be more accurate/concise, but also less prone to POV edit-warring. If I remember correctly, at some point prior, concerns were raised about the lead's degrading quality and increasing verbosity in what should be and FA. Since no discussion revolved around precisely the reverted line in question, the only consensus for that would be assumed consensus, based on its retention and edits building on it. In other words, I can't defend it as forcefully as I did in the edit summaries, but I have provided points for discussion here. :)  —Sowlos  15:15, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Δρ.Κ, the lead state you reverted to is very similar to what was removed.  —Sowlos 

(edit conflict × 2) Yes, but the edit I removed used the "name/term" formulation.

(edit conflict × 2) This affair has started with a similar formulation since early January 2013 which was reverted multiple times at the time by FPaS and myself.

The Byzantine Empire (or Byzantium) is the name historians have given to the Roman Empire

I also notice that the the editor of this change on 6 March 2013 is a newly-created account whose first edit was to continue the edit war that had started since January. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 15:29, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry if I repeated a few things but I meant to change my previous edit, but due to edit-conflict things got messed up slightly. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 15:29, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. I can't begin to say how weary I am of efforts to say blithely that the entity known today as the Byzantine Empire was "just" the continuation of the Roman Empire. The capital was not Rome; the dominant language was not Latin; the official religion was not the so-called "religion of Numa" on which Roman identity was based; the toga as the distinctive garment of the male citizen was worn only occasionally in the earliest phase, then abandoned. It was not a Rome that Cato the Elder or Cicero or even Marcus Aurelius would recognize as such; they would probably regard it as a regaining of independence by the "Greek" or Macedonian empire the Romans fought against in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. Nor did "Rome" cease to exist; Rome has a continuous history that at some point excludes precisely the entity known as the Byzantine Empire. In what sense other than titular was this entity the Roman Empire? I can dress up like Marilyn Monroe; I can call myself Marilyn Monroe; but I am not Marilyn Monroe. "Byzantine Empire" is just a convenient label for a standard periodization. The nomenclature can be dealt with in a section (right below the intro, if you must). This is sheer pedantry that only confuses readers who will be coming here because they want to learn about what is conventionally known as the Byzantine Empire, which has distinctive cultural features not found in "ancient Rome". There is certainly a transitional period beginning with the founding of Constantinople and Christian hegemony, just as there is no one single day on which Europeans went to sleep in late antiquity and woke up in the early middle ages. But we define historical periods by those aspects that are most discrete, salient, distinct and identifiable, not by the blurry edges. That does not exclude nuance. But there's only so much nuance you can cram into a first sentence. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:41, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, yes, that's the basis of most of the modern historiography on the topic e.g. Peter Heather in this chapter opening. But this is just one of those peculiar Wikipedia hot topics which has a life of its own outside of the academic world we're supposedly reflecting. I suspect your post will open the usual floodgates so I think I'm going to take this article off my watchlist for a while. DeCausa (talk) 16:07, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

You could do that (very visibly quitting on an article as a pointless exercise) or you could contribute to moving the article past its problems. If you leave something to others, you can't complain if you don't like what they do.  —Sowlos  16:14, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't appreciate the lecture. I've been through this debate too many times (your date of registration and edit count suggests that you may have had the pleasure of this debate less often) and it bores me rigid. I'm not interested. DeCausa (talk) 17:02, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your input, Cynwolfe. This is all true.
I don't want this treated as black-and-white issue. This snail paced edit war has to do with a Wikipedia-based debate between two vocal factions arguing that the Byzantine Empire is the Roman Empire and that it is a separate entity. Care must be taken with how we word the lead if we want to keep it in a stable state. I had hoped to find some middle-ground between the two perspectives, but I feel the recent reverts are simply continuing the old pattern. Edits from both sides seem to include mere references to memes from the debate, the kind of thing that is confusing at best for uninformed readers.
In my opinion, lead should mention that "Byzantine" is a label for periodization (the lead is supposed to summarize what something is), but it also should be cut down by multiple paragraphs. The lead is a miniature history section. This is usually the result of inexperienced editors tendency towards over-verbosity and such writing encourages the inclusion of evermore unnecessary information.  —Sowlos  16:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I support the approach Sowlos outlines. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:25, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

This is a tough call. If we delineate the period without due care one may lose the signal/information that the Byzantine Empire was the rightful heir to and continuation of the Roman Empire. I think that the current formulation is based on the right balance of academic consensus. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 18:08, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

As long as the opening makes it clear that Byzantium was a term invented by historians which marks the evolution of the Roman Empire into something more Greek and Christian oriented, I don't really care. However, as someone who has only really learned the history of Byzantium and Rome in the last few years, I have to say, the average person doesn't understand that Byzantium essentially "was" the Roman Empire of the middle ages. Between all the talk of the "fall" of the Roman Empire elsewhere in the historical world and the altered name, the average person doesn't get it until they *really* look into it. They think Byzantium was some new empire formed after Rome's fall. I know that's essentially what I used to think. The average reader would have no idea that Byzantium continued to call itself Roman all the way to the 1400's. An encyclopedia should be at peace with scholarly knowledge AND the needs of the average reader. Famartin (talk) 18:10, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Byzantium was a term invented by historians which marks the evolution of the Roman Empire into something more Greek and Christian oriented. Not unless our article on Byzantium is woefully incorrect. Byzantium was founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 657 BC under that name. It was refounded by Constantine. (Cities were often "refounded" under new patronage even in the latter part of the Republican era; this was for instance a feature of the colonia system, which produces all those Coloniae Iuliae.) The city later refounded as Constantinople had been Greek for centuries prior to that. The Roman Empire always had a Latin-speaking West and a Greek-speaking East (though bilingualism was the norm among the minority who were educated), with the fault line running through the Balkans. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:08, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Sigh. Another semi-illiterate who doesn't know how to use quotation signs. No, for chrissake, Byzantium wasn't a term. "Byzantium" is a term. Learn what quotation signs are there for, at last. Sowlos, thanks for at least admitting that you have now grasped the application of the use-mention distinction. But your proposal to simply ignore the issue and accept the sloppiness is unacceptable. In careful written discourse, good writers in English do take care to observe the use-mention distinction. Just because some people here have a tin ear for such logical faults doesn't mean the rest of us must tolerate them. In fact, we have a guideline for this very issue: WP:REFERS. Your alleged counterexample, about "et cetera" just goes to prove the point: et cetera is precisely an article about a term, and the term is correctly italicised in the intro (which is the correct form for citing an expression). This article here is not about at term, it's about an empire.

This will be my last word on the issue here. I am absolutely fed up, sick and tired of this inane discussion and will not waste more of my time on explaining these things again to you. If you or anybody else reinsert that phrase, I will revert it, as often as it takes, even if it should be the last thing I do on this project. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:24, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, thanks. As far as definitive statements go, your last sentence makes a really unmistakable statement. :) Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 19:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Your comment is in violation of Wikipedia policy on No personal attacks, Fut.Perf.. Thanks for attacking the person. Famartin (talk) 01:17, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Rewriting the lead

Conflict over what the Byzantine Empire is has been such a long lasting issue that the mere mention of disagreement can spur rants. Having faith in our ability to not become enslaved by past patterns, I'm going to push on and hope for the best.

The lead of this article suffers a propensity to placate mutually exclusive POVs and over-explain things. Rather than summarizing the article's key points (like leads should), it throws potentially confusing confusing definitions of the subject and a near fully formed timeline at readers. It seems we've all been content to leave the good enough lead alone out of fear of sparking further edit wars, but it's my experience/opinion that well formed content tends to do a good job of discouraging low quality edits on its own.

Cynwolfe has very kindly made some suggestions for cleaning up the lead at my request. Based on her suggestions and the pattern of other quality articles, I also have drafted a proposal.

My proposal

The Byzantine Empire (Template:Lang-grc, tr. Basileia Rhōmaiōn), initially the eastern half of the post-crisis Roman Empire, was the predominately Greek-speaking civilisation of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. It had its capital in Constantinople, also known as Byzantium, from 330 to 1453. After the Western Roman Empire fragmented and collapsed in the 5th century, the eastern half continued to thrive, existing for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. Several events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the transitional period during which the Roman Empire's east and west divided. In 285, the emperor Diocletian (r. 284–305) partitioned the Roman Empire's administration into eastern and western halves. Between 324 and 330, Constantine I (r. 306–337) transferred the main capital from Rome to Byzantium, later known as Constantinople ("City of Constantine") and Nova Roma ("New Rome"). Under Theodosius I (r. 379–395), Christianity became the Empire's official state religion and others such as Roman polytheism were proscribed. And finally, under the reign Heraclius (r. 610–641), the Empire's military and administration were restructured and adopted Greek for official use instead of Latin. The borders of the Empire evolved a great deal over its existence. During the reign of Justinian I (r. 527–565), the Empire reached its greatest extent after reconquering much of the historically Roman western Mediterranean coast, including north Africa, Italy, and Rome itself, which it held for two more centuries. During the reign of Maurice (r. 582–602), the Empire's eastern frontier was expanded and north stabilised. However, his assassination caused a two decade-long war with Sassanid Persia which exhausted the Empire's resources and contributed to major territorial losses during the Byzantine–Arab Wars of the 7th century. During the 10th century Macedonian dynasty, the Empire experienced something of a renaissance, but lost much of Asia Minor the Seljuk Turks after 1071. The final centuries of the Empire were marked by near continuous decline. It struggled to recover during the 12th century, but was delivered a mortal blow by the Fourth Crusade, when Constantinople was sacked and the Empire dissolved and divided into competing Byzantine Greek and Latin realms. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople and re-establishment of the Empire in 1261, Byzantium remained only one of many small rival states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. This volatile period lead to its progressive annexation by the Ottomans over the 15th century.

I would have loved to reduce the lead more, but I tried to be conservative in my reductions. Please comment on, critique, or build up my suggestion.  —Sowlos  21:59, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I'll leave quibbling over the details of what may or may not have been omitted to others, but as a piece of writing, this intro overall seems much more reader-friendly in offering positive information instead of disproportionate trivia arguments over naming. Ideally a short paragraph would be added that summarizes something of the cultural achievements we should think of when we hear "Byzantine Empire". The article does have a major section on culture, but it hasn't been represented in the intro. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:43, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Ideally a short paragraph would be added that summarizes something of the cultural achievements … That's a good idea.  —Sowlos  23:06, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

No objection against the general idea of a refocussing and slimming-down of the lead, but I don't think the first sentence of the draft is optimal. First, defining the topic as a "civilisation" seems off to me – the topic of the article is still an empire, and that's not the same thing. Second, if your goal is to strike a better balance between what you described as those two POV perspectives (seeing Byzantium as either just the same thing as the Roman Empire or as a distinct entity), then I really think your draft is counterproductive, because it entails a much stronger and much more one-sided positioning on this matter than the current version. If you say it was "initially" the Roman Empire, then that logically implies that at some later stage it ceased to be that and became something else. So your version is now much more strongly "anti-Roman" than the present one is. I believe the strength of the present definition is just that it gets this balance right in a much simpler way, because "was the continuation of" is deliberately vague in this respect and can be read both ways (if A is the continuation of B, it may either be still the same as B or not. Sometimes vagueness is a very good thing.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:00, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: The statement that this state was the “continuation of the Roman Empire” is supported by sources, so I have to say, I do not really see any problem with the current wording. Cody7777777 (talk) 12:25, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

FWIW, I don't think the current opening sentence is too bad. It gets across the time period, the link to the Roman Empire (like FP, I like the appropriate vagueness of "continuation", not from a WP compromise perspective, but because it reflects the vagueness of the actuality) and the central importance of Constantinople. What follows (the next 2 sentences) is where the problem lies: the obsession that nomenclature is important - that's just not how it is in the WP:RS. It isn't important, it's a minor point of interest: it's a piece of pub quiz trivia. (As is the whole wild goose chase of whether it's the "real" Roman Empire or not.) So, in general terms, I would say Sowlos' draft is an improvement - but amalgamate it with the current opening sentence. DeCausa (talk) 12:30, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with shortening the other paragraphs (and also with providing a paragraph about cultural achievements, if other users wish this), but I believe the first paragraph, of the current lead, should remain unchanged. In this case, it must be pointed out that “Byzantine Empire” is not a native name. Cody7777777 (talk) 13:21, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Why? Many many historic, especially ancient, states, civilizations and so on have modern names in English which are unrelated to the native name. I can't think of any that make it a point of discussion in the first paragraph of the lead. It's not a lead issue, certainly not one for the first paragraph - and if it is mentioned, then one sentence on nomenclature is more than enough. DeCausa (talk) 13:27, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I do not really have a problem if it is moved from the first paragraph (although in my opinion, its current place is well suited), but there needs to be information about this in the lead, because some readers could actually believe it was a native name. And in this case, there are historians who have considered the term “Byzantine” as “incorrect and misleading”, and it is also used as a pejorative term (which is not the case in most of the other non-native names of various states). Cody7777777 (talk) 14:19, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I think the current lead is fine. Just saying. And as someone who is "lay" and has felt himself "mislead" by its appellation, I think it should remain in the opening. Famartin (talk) 16:40, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm not an expert on the Byzantine Empire, but I do think Sowlos' proposed lead is much, much better than the current (too lengthy) lead of the article as it is now. I wouldn't object to reducing the lead even more, by the way.

As Cynwolfe has noted earlier, it would be great if a short paragraph on the Culture section could be included as well.

Keep in mind most people read the lead section first (and often only read the lead). A lead should be a clear, concise and short introduction/summary/overview of the article. The current lead fails, the proposed lead is much better. Michael! (talk) 18:42, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

TL;DR
@Fut.Perf.
First, defining the topic as a "civilisation" seems off …
I understand what you mean. I stared at that sentence for quite a while before settling on that wording. The introductory sentence needs to say what the subject is. My thinking was: calling the Byzantine Empire an… "empire" would be redundant and "civilisation" (the society, culture, and way of life of a particular area) is more neutral regardless. Perhaps I was wrong. Do you have any alternate wordings to suggest?
Second, if your goal is to strike a better balance between what you described as those two POV perspectives …, then I really think your draft is counterproductive, … If you say it was "initially" the Roman Empire, then that logically implies that at some later stage it ceased to be that and became something else.
Hmmm. AFAICT, that clause explicitly describes what Byzantium is as being complex and subject to change over history without going into the endless nitpicking (better discussed in the body, such as in #Nomenclature). By describing it as "initially the eastern half" of a specific phase of the Roman Empire, I was trying to acknowledge its roots in what was clearly the Roman Empire without specifying what it might have become at a later time. In stating it was was initially part of the post crisis institutions of the Roman Empire, I am — of course — implying it changed, but staying very far from saying what it might have been at a later time. The "post-crisis" period was a fairly limited point in time. Byzantium would logically become other things before becoming the continuation of or separate entity from the Roman Empire. I thought it would be best to leave the details to the body and ultimate determination to the reader.
@DeCausa
"Continuation" can mean "the state of remaining in a particular position or condition", but it can also mean "a part that is attached to and is an extension of something else". Essentially, it can be read as meaning both. Unfortunately, with "hot button" issues, that tends to mean it can inflame opposing POVs. That's why I thought describing what it came from would be the better approach.
@Cody7777777
… it must be pointed out that “Byzantine Empire” is not a native name.
This was one of those issues I looked to other articles for guidance. Germany, for instance, starts with "Germany (/ˈdʒɜrməni/; German: Deutschland), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, pronounced [ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant]), is a federal parliamentary republic in western-central Europe." (Most national articles I checked started similarly.) By following Germany's exonym with the native name in parentheses, it informs the reader that "Germany" is not the country's endonym in a concise way. States having endonyms and exonyms is not uncommon, so there are conventions we can follow.
@Michael
As Cynwolfe has noted earlier, it would be great if a short paragraph on the Culture section could be included as well.
I completely agree. I was giving others an opportunity to make the first draft of such a paragraph.  —Sowlos  19:32, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Re. your question whether I have "any alternate wordings to suggest": no, I'm afraid right now I can't think of anything better than the lead sentence as it is now (i.e. the "continuation of..." phrase). As for the parallel with the Germany/Deutschland example, I'm afraid that really doesn't work too well: having these simple translations in brackets in the lead sentence works only if the terms in question are uncontroversially simple translation equivalents of each other. Which is the case for "Germany" and "Deutschland", but not for "Byzantine Empire" and any of the possible historic appellations. The historic names all have additional and different conceptual content, so simply listing them is not an option, unless we go into much detail explaining them. And then we're right back at square one, having to spend an inordinate amount of space in the intro dealing only with the terminology – just the thing you quite rightly wanted to cut down on. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:10, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I still object to the exclusion of pointing out the fact that the inhabitants considered their empire the Roman Empire up to its dissolution. If that could be addressed in the re-write, I could support it. Famartin (talk) 19:48, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate your desire to improve the lead, but as other users have said, the vagueness of “continuation” is more appropiate here, and it is also supported by sources. Regarding, the nomenclature, while it is conventional to translate Deutschland as Germany, this is not the case of “Byzantine Empire” (this exression cannot be translated from “Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων”, which is translated as “Roman Empire”). Also, information about the nomenclature is mentioned in the following books, when introducing this state[3][4][5][6][7]. So I would support your changes, if the nomenclature, and the first sentence, are not eliminated from the lead. Cody7777777 (talk) 08:26, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Don't you two think that's better suited for the body, where it can give a more thorough treatment on the matter? The summary of the body can only include so much detail. If "The Byzantine Empire (Template:Lang-grc, tr. Basileia Rhōmaiōn) …" doesn't do the job well enough, what about "The Byzantine Empire (Template:Lang-grc, tr. Basileia Rhōmaiōn; meaning "Roman Empire") …"?

@Cody7777777
Vagueness is good for this lead, but "continuation" seems counter productive to its intended end.  —Sowlos  11:02, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Translating "Byzantine Empire" to "Βασιλεία Ρωμαίων" is misleading, and it's not even like Greek literature does not refer to it by "Βυζαντινή Αυτοκρατορία". You can talk about how it's a continuation and whatnot further down in the lead/article. — Lfdder (talk) 11:36, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I have to say, I have difficulty understanding why “continuation” is “counter-productive to its intended end”. It might not be ideal, but to me it looks nonetheless acceptable for this lead (as Fut.Perf. said, your initial proposal implied that it ceased to be “Roman”). Regarding the nomenclature, I also do not see why it would be so problematic to quickly inform our readers that this state was not called “Byzantine Empire” (especially since as Michael! noted earlier, people often read the lead only). As shown by the previous books, historians have found it necessary to mention about the nomenclature close to the beginning of their text (and here are two other books[8][9] which mention about the nomenclature in their introduction). (I'm sorry if my reply might seem repulsive, but I'm not convinced those changes are necessary.) Cody7777777 (talk) 14:38, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

This discussion shouldn't be on what would be the perfect first sentence (it'll never be perfect). We ought to discuss how the lead could be improved. Any improvement is welcome! I think Sowlos' proposal is better than the current lead and could thus be implemented. If you disagree, then rewrite the proposal or make a counterproposal.Michael! (talk) 19:26, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

PS: According to the Oxford Dictionary of English (3rd edition, 2010), the Byzantine Empire is "the empire in SE Europe and Asia Minor formed from the eastern part of the Roman Empire." This definition seems neutral to me and might be useful here as well. Michael! (talk) 19:26, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Huh? "Rewrite the proposal or make a counterproposal"? The counterproposal is the current lead (and several people have supported it so far). Nice try shifting the goalpost so as to exclude that solution a priori. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:51, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

@FPaS, I apologize, I didn't mean to exclude that possibility, nor do I disagree with you on this. What I meant to say is that these long discussions on a few words are not really productive. The posts on this talk page concerning that first sentence are much larger in size than the lead itself. Besides, it would be pity if the article as it is can't be improved and the whole proposal will be rejected, only because there isn't consensus on one single sentence. Right now, it seems to me that the discussion of the first sentence is slightly exaggerated, while discussing the remaining part of the lead is largely ignored. Michael! (talk) 20:14, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

PPS: It might be interesting to have a quick look at the lead of the Holy Roman Empire (another "Roman Empire" "continuation"). Of course, this lead isn't perfect, but it's more concise than the current lead of the Byzantine Empire.Michael! (talk) 20:14, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Has anyone considered that not highlighting the fact that the citizens of this empire continued to call themselves Roman in the lead, and the renaming of the Empire itself, are very non-neutral points of view? Its a very "western European" point of view. If you read the Quran, you won't find any mention of Byzantines, the text says they were fighting Romans! Famartin (talk) 21:51, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

What a people call themselves is very relevant in an article about them. Sure, foreigners called them by other names, but that is true for most peoples and countries (especially across language barriers). I'm sure we'd all love Wikipedia to have a perspective completely free from the POVs of all nations on Earth, but there is no such perspective exists. Lets try to stay on topic.  —Sowlos  22:40, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Well remember, it was not just themselves, most of their neighbors called them "Romans" too. It was the western Europeans who decided they were something else. Famartin (talk) 22:56, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I misread what you wrote. The good news is: if you read through the post above, you will see there is strong support for informing the readers of what the Byzantines actually called themselves.  —Sowlos  23:14, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Since there seems to be support for trying to improve the lead, I would like to propose two compromises based on the objections raised. They're separate so they can be evaluated and implemented (or not) separately.

1. The last three paragraphs of the draft seem to be uncontroversial. They simply are concise versions of the lead's current last three paragraphs. Since the first paragraph still calls the Byzantine Empire a "continuation" and points out that Byzantine citizens called themselves Roman, the last three paragraphs should have no bearing on the debate above. I would like to implement them.
2. The most controversial parts of the first paragraph were my wording of the first sentence and removal of the statement explicitly telling readers the Byzantine Empire had a different name amongst its people. Here is a rewording preserving those two points:

The Byzantine Empire was the predominately Greek-speaking continuation of the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. It had its capital in Constantinople, also known as Byzantium, from 330 to 1453. Initially the eastern half of the post-crisis Roman Empire (often called the Eastern Roman Empire in this context), it survived the 5th century fragmentation and collapse of the Western Roman Empire and continued to thrive, existing for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe.

Both "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" are historiographical terms applied in later centuries; its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire (Template:Lang-grc, tr. Basileia Rhōmaiōn; Template:Lang-la), and Romania (Ῥωμανία).

Is this better? No information is removed. The most radical change is that the naming issue is broken from the first paragraph. There just is no good way to insert there without breaking the flow and it makes more sense as a bridge between the first paragraph which gives the reader the information needed to understand why the Byzantines would call themselves Roman and the following paragraph which discusses the blurry transitional period between what we call the "Roman Empire" and the "Byzantine Empire".

On a separate note, I think that last sentence ("During most of its existence…") should be spun off into the culture paragraph mentioned earlier.  —Sowlos  13:52, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm cool with that. Famartin (talk) 18:13, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Feel free to do so. Michael! (talk) 10:23, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Minor quibbles:

• "... had its capital in Constantinople ... from 330 to 1453": a bit awkward – those are the dates of the empire itself; introducing them as the date of just the capital sounds as if there were other times when the empire had its capital elsewhere.
• "... post-crisis...": I'd leave that out; it's rather opaque for the normal reader, and hardly relevant for the definition of what Byzantium was. Also, the link under "post-crisis" is an easter-egg link.
• "... historiographical terms...": remove the links. The first is trivial and irrelevant (the practice of calling this empire by this particular name is not bound to some specific theory of history-writing), and the second is both trivial, and an easter-egg, and (in the present form) wrong (what you probably meant was "exonym", not "endonym". Just goes to show how opaque these terms are for most readers. But "exonym" wouldn't be quite correct either – "exonym" usually means a name given by contemporaries from outside, not a name given in historical hindsight by historians).
• If the alternative historical appellations are moved away from the first paragraph, they shouldn't be bolded but only italicized, to be less obtrusive to the reader. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:09, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Your new proposal is indeed better than the previous, and it is largely acceptable for me. However, I still don't think the formula “Initially the eastern half of the post-crisis Roman Empire” is very good, I think it should be rephrased as “Initially the eastern half of the ancient Roman Empire”. The other paragraphs are ok, and regarding cultural issues, I think it might be useful to point out somewhere its role as a bastion and preserver of culture, while most of Europe was in the dark ages, and the contribution its scholars later had in the western Renaissance. Cody7777777 (talk) 15:40, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I think "ancient" Roman Empire is not a known term and is unnecssary as is "post-crisis". I don't think any qualification is needed. DeCausa (talk) 18:35, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

 Done
I dropped in the last three paragraphs and made the changes to the first before doing the same.
Revision notes:

• Based on what Fut.Purf. said, I removed the dates from the "capital in Constantinople" line.
• Based on the strong opposition to "post-crisis", I removed it, but replaced it with "late". While the time periods mentioned in the intro should make it obvious, I thought not all readers will make the connection. Delete that if you think no qualification is really needed.
• I unlinked "... historiographical terms..." and wooooops! I know the difference between endo and exo. I should have notice that. :/
• Last, I unbolded the terminology.

Thankfully, you all seemed to be in agreement over what tweaks were needed for the first paragraph's replacement. If you think I erred in implementing any of those tweaks, feel free to tweak some more!  —Sowlos  22:36, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Yep, it's an improvement. One thing I've always felt missing from the lead, and which I think is the hallmark of Byzantine history, is the cyclical nature of Byzantine decline and recovery. I suggest beginning the fourth paragraph: "The borders of the Empire evolved a great deal over its existence as the empire went through several cycles of decline and recovery". DeCausa (talk) 08:27, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I think that phrase is nonetheless better without the “late” qualification (in my opinion, “ancient” would have been more appropriate here, but I don't intend to continue discussing about this). Except that, it looks fine, and I'm glad we reached an agreement. I also think DeCausa's suggestion would improve the beginning of the fourth paragraph. Cody7777777 (talk) 09:07, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

The two modifications look good. I'm happy when consensus is found and progress made, especially in this case.
While I obviously would have liked to condense things further, I think the lead is much better then before. With any luck, it may be subject to fewer rage edits.  —Sowlos  10:26, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. One minor remark on the sentence "It had its capital in Constantinople, also known as Byzantium". Wouldn't it be better to write previously or originally instead of also known as? As far as I know, Byzantium (Βυζάντιον) was the ancient Greek city before it was refounded by Constantine as Constantinople in 324-330; afterwards, the city was no longer named Byzantium; "also known as Byzantium" suggests Byzantium is an alternative name of Constantinople, of (nearly) equal status. It might even be better to rewrite the sentence to shorter "Its capital was Constantinople." or to longer "It had its capital in Constantinople (ancient Byzantium, modern Istanbul)." Anyway, it's just something to think about, not really important. Michael! (talk) 10:52, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

While its name was changed with its rededication, it was still occasionally called 'Byzantium'.  —Sowlos  11:40, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but it was also occasionally called Nova Roma and had various other unofficial names between 330 and 1453, but those names are not mentioned in the first paragraph of the lead. Michael! (talk) 12:18, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

The way I see it, the one good reason to mention "Byzantium" as an alternate name of the city at that point in some form is because it's the motivation for calling the empire "Byzantine", a name that would otherwise remain opaque to the naive reader. An alternative would be to take up your suggestion of mentioning "Istanbul" in that sentence instead (because in a sentence that says what its capital was, it makes sense to give the reader this additional hint as to "what/where the heck was Constantinople?"), and relegate the mentioning of "Byzantium" to the next paragraph (because it's really not so much relevant to "what the heck was that capital?", but quite relevant to "why the heck was the empire called Byzantine?"). So we'd end up with something like:

"... it had its capital in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) ...", followed in the second paragraph by:

"... The modern name "Byzantine Empire" was coined in reference to "Byzantium", the previous name of the capital Constantinople during antiquity." (or something to that effect)

Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:41, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Again, there is such a thing as information overload. People tend to want to put every useful fact they can think of in the lead. In the worst case that turns it into a massive trivia section; in the other worst case, the lead becomes its own mini article.
Every name for Constantinople is not essential information in a general overview of the Empire. As Fut.Purf. said, mentioning "Byzantium" gives uninformed readers an idea why "the Eastern Roman Empire" would be called "Byzantine". However, the capital probably deserves its own section in the body to cover this intricate topic.
While I'm not opposed to saying "... originally named ... ", it may communicate that it completely fell out of use (similar to how "Constantinople" fell out of use in favour of "Istanbul").
it makes sense to give the reader this additional hint as to "what/where the heck was Constantinople?"
Thankfully, wikilinks help with terms which may be otherwise be opaque to the laymen.  —Sowlos  13:55, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

(unindent) Sorry if I'm late to the debate, but while I have no objection to modifying the lede, I think some of the condensing went a little too far. Specifically:

• The resurgence under the Macedonian dynasty was much more than "something of a renaissance", it was in fact the Empire's golden age, when it was the most powerful state in the eastern mediterranean region. I think the previous wording in that sentence was better. I also don't like having the Macedonian renaissance and the battle of Manzikert in the same sentence, especially seeing how the Macedonian dynasty ended with Basil II in 1025 and Manzikert took place in 1071. I propose "The Empire recovered beginning in the 9th under the Macedonian dynasty, rising again to become the most powerful state in Europe and the Mediterranean. After 1071, much of Asia Minor, the Empire's heartland, was lost to the Seljuk Turks."

• The Komnenian restoration should be mentioned by name instead of just in passing as "it struggled to recover". I prefer the previous wording "The Komnenian restoration regained some ground and briefly reestablished dominance in the 12th century, but following the death of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143–1180) and the end of the Komnenos dynasty in the late 12th century the Empire declined further. "

• The capture of Constantinople in 1453 should mentioned specifically instead of just " progressive annexation by the Ottomans over the 15th century.".

Other than that I am fine with everything else. Athenean (talk) 18:46, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

First paragraph (again)

Although I agree in general with the implemented changes, I don't think the "compromise" first paragraph is an improvement; I think it's worse than the previous version and worse than the first proposal. A lead should be a concise summary, not a mini-article, so repetition should be avoided. In my opinion, the current first paragraph is somewhat repetitive, not concise. For instance:

"The Byzantine Empire was the predominately Greek-speaking continuation of the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages." ... "Initially the eastern half of the Roman Empire (often called the Eastern Roman Empire in this context), it survived the 5th century fragmentation and collapse of the Western Roman Empire and ..."

Furthermore, the second sentence of the first paragraph is:

"It had its capital in the city of Constantinople, also known as Byzantium."

But the third paragraph already informs us that:

"... the main capital from Rome to Byzantium, later known as Constantinople ..."

Don't you think it would be better to condense the first paragraph to something like:

The Byzantine Empire was the predominately Greek-speaking continuation of the Roman Empire (i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire) during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, with its capital in Constantinople. It survived the 5th century fragmentation and collapse of the Western Roman Empire and ...

This (or something equivalent) would remove some of the repetitiveness, reduce three sentences to two, and move the "alternative name" Eastern Roman Empire from the third to the first sentence. What do you think? Michael! (talk) 09:48, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

PS: If you want to keep the old city name in the first paragraph, you could use a note ( {{#tag:ref| ... |group="n"}} ), but I don't think it's really necessary, since it's already in the third paragraph.

PPS: Why is Constantinople italicized? It is the proper English name, not in a foreign language (such as Nova Roma is, and Greek Konstantinoúpolis and Latin Constantinopolis would be).

In my opinion, your proposal looks like an improvement. Regarding "Byzantium", it could perhaps, be rephrased in parentheses as "(also referred as Byzantium)" (I don't expect this will solve the issue, but I do not find it too problematic). Cody7777777 (talk) 14:39, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Infobox

The Byzantine Empire was "dissolved and divided" in 1204 and only "re-established" in 1261 (last paragraph of the lead). However, the infobox informs us that it existed from 330-1453. Don't you think it would be better to replace this with 330-1204 and 1261-1453, like is done with various other former state's infoboxes, such as Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

The successor states of the Byzantine Empire (in 1204) would then be Latin Empire, Empire of Nicaea, Empire of Trebizond, and Despotate of Epirus, with the first two being the predecessors of the re-established Byzantine Empire (1261 onwards).

Keeping the current format of the infobox is somewhat conflicting with the lead, a mismatch so to say. The infobox now suggests the Byzantine Empire continuously existed from 330 to 1453 (and with its capital in Constantinople), thus implying that the Latin Empire was THE Byzantine Empire between 1204 and 1261 (and the only one, suggesting Empire of Nicaea wasn't a/the Byzantine Empire). Michael! (talk) 10:06, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

PS: Various sister projects use 330-1204 and 1261-1453 instead of 330-1453 too, for instance nl:Byzantijnse Rijk. Michael! (talk) 10:14, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd support removing the infobox entirely. Srnec (talk) 17:07, 13 April 2013 (UTC)