Roman people

The Romans (Latin: Rōmānī; Ancient Greek: Ῥωμαῖοι,

romanized: Rhōmaîoi)[a] were a cultural group, variously referred to
Romans
as an ethnicity[2][3][b] or a nationality,[4][5] that in classical Latin: Rōmānī
antiquity, from the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD, came to Ancient Greek: Ῥωμαῖοι,
rule the Near East, North Africa, and large parts of Europe through Rhōmaîoi[a]
conquests made during the Roman Republic and the later Roman
Empire. Originally only referring to the Italic Latin citizens of
Rome itself, the meaning of "Roman" underwent considerable
changes throughout the long history of Roman civilisation as the
borders of the Roman state expanded and contracted. At times,
different groups within Roman society also had different ideas as
to what it meant to be Roman. Aspects such as geography,
language, and ethnicity could be seen as important by some,
whereas others saw Roman citizenship and culture or behaviour as
more important.[6][7][8][9] At the height of the Roman Empire,
Roman identity was a collective geopolitical identity, extended to
nearly all subjects of the Roman emperors and encompassing vast 1st century AD wall painting from
regional and ethnic diversity.[10] Pompeii depicting a
multigenerational banquet
As the land under Roman rule increased from the 4th century BC
Languages
onwards, Roman citizenship was gradually extended to the various
peoples under Roman dominion. Citizenship grants, demographic Latin · Classical Greek · Other
growth, and settler and military colonies rapidly increased the languages
number of Roman citizens. The increase achieved its peak with Religion
Emperor Caracalla's AD 212 Antonine Constitution, which
extended citizenship rights to all free inhabitants of the empire. It is Imperial cult, Roman religion,
for the most part not clear to what extent the majority of Roman Hellenistic religion, Christianity
citizens in antiquity regarded themselves as being Roman. Most Related ethnic groups
likely, local identities were prominent throughout the Roman
Other ancient Italic peoples
Empire due to its vast geographical extent, but Roman identity
(including other Latins and the
provided a larger sense of common identity and became important
when distinguishing from non-Romans, such as barbarian settlers Falisci), other ancient peoples of
and invaders.[11][12] Roman culture was far from homogeneous; Italy, other Mediterranean Sea
though there was a predominant Hellenistic-inspired cultural peoples, modern Romance peoples
idiom, one of the strengths of the Roman Empire was also its and Greeks
ability to incorporate traditions from other cultures. Rome's cultural
flexibility precluded the development of a strong Roman 'core identity' in Italy, but also contributed to the
empire's longevity.

The Roman Empire affected the personal identities of its subject peoples to a considerable extent and
Roman identity lasted throughout the lands of the empire until long after the Roman Empire itself had faded
away. The collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century ended the political domination of the
Roman Empire in Western Europe, but Roman identity survived in the west as an important political
resource. Through the failures of the surviving Eastern Roman Empire, also called the Byzantine Empire,
of reconquering and keeping control of the west and suppression from the new Germanic kingdoms,
Roman identity faded away in the west, more or less disappearing in the 8th and 9th centuries. Increasingly,
Western Europeans only began applying the designation of Roman
to the citizens of the city of Rome itself. In the Greek-speaking east,
still under imperial control, Roman identity survived until the fall of
the Byzantine Empire in 1453 and beyond, though it increasingly
transformed into an ethnic identity, marked by Greek language and
adherence to Orthodox Christianity, a precursor to modern Greek
ethnic identity. The two major groups still clinging to Roman
identity throughout the Middle Ages—the Byzantine Greeks of the
eastern empire and the citizens of Rome itself—drifted apart
linguistically and religiously and eventually ceased to recognise
each other as Roman.
Border changes of the Roman state
Whereas Roman identity faded away in most of the lands where it from the 6th century BC to the 15th
was once prominent, for some regions and peoples it proved century AD
considerably more tenacious. 'Romans' has been consistently used
since antiquity to describe the citizens of Rome itself, who identify
and are described as such to this day. The Greeks continued to identify as Romioi, or related names, after
the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, though most identify as Hellenes today. In the Alps, Roman identity
survived uninterrupted, despite Frankish efforts at suppression. Today, the names of two groups in
Switzerland still evokes their descent from these populations: the Romands and the Romansh people.
Several ethnonyms of the Balkan Romance peoples, whose descent in most cases is unclear, evoke Roman
identity. Several names derive from the Latin Romani (such as the Romanians, Aromanians and Istro-
Romanians), or from the Germanic walhaz (a term originally referring to the Romans; adopted in the form
'Vlach' as the self-designation of the Megleno-Romanians).[13]

Contents
Romanness
Meaning of "Roman"
Non-Romans
Antiquity
Classical antiquity
Founding myths and Romans of the republic
Romans of the early empire
Late antiquity
Later history
Western Europe
Early endurance of Roman identity
Disappearances of Roman identity
Reversion to Rome proper
North Africa
Eastern Mediterranean
Survival of the Roman Empire in the east
After the Muslim conquests
After the fall of Constantinople
Modern identity
See also
Notes
References
Citations
Sources

Romanness

Meaning of "Roman"

The term 'Roman' is today used interchangeably to describe a

historical timespan, a material culture, a geographical location, and
a personal identity. Though these concepts are related, they are not
identical. Many modern historians tend to have a preferred idea of
what being Roman meant, so-called Romanitas, but this was a term
rarely used in Ancient Rome itself.[14] Like all identities, the
identity of 'Roman' was flexible, dynamic and multi-layered,[15]
and never static or unchanging.[14] Given that Rome was a
geographically vast and chronologically long-lived state, there is no
simple definition of what being Roman meant[16] and definitions
were inconsistent already in antiquity.[17] Nevertheless, some
elements remained common throughout much of Roman
Six of the Fayum mummy portraits, history.[14]
contemporary portraits of people in
Roman Egypt from the 1st century Some ancient Romans considered aspects such as geography,
BC to the 3rd century AD language, and ethnicity as important markers of Romanness,
whereas others saw Roman citizenship and culture or behaviour as
more important.[6][7][8][9] At the height of the Roman Empire,
Roman identity formed a collective geopolitical identity, extended to nearly all subjects of the Roman
emperors and encompassing vast regional and ethnical diversity.[10] Often, what individual believed and
did was far more important to the concept of Roman identity than long bloodlines and shared descent.[6]
The key to 'Romanness' in the minds of some famous Roman orators, such as Cicero, was keeping with
Roman tradition and serving the Roman state.[18] Cicero's view of Romanness were partly formed by his
status as a "new man", the first of his family to serve in the Roman Senate, lacking prestigious lines of
Roman descent himself.[19] This is not to say that the importance of blood kinship was wholly dismissed.
Orators such as Cicero frequently appealed to their noble contemporaries to live up to the 'greatness of their
forefathers'.[18] These appeals were typically only invoked towards illustrious noble families, with other
important traditions emphasising Rome's collective descent.[7][20]

Throughout its history, Rome proved to be uniquely capable of incorporating and integrating other peoples
(Romanisation). This sentiment originated from the city's foundation myths, including Rome being founded
as something akin to a political sanctuary by Romulus, as well as the rape of the Sabine women, which
represented how different peoples had commingled since the very beginning of the city.[7][20] Cicero and
other Roman authors sneered at peoples such as the Athenians, who prided themselves in their shared
descent, and instead found pride in Rome's status as a "mongrel nation".[21] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a
Greek historian who lived in Roman times, even embellished the multicultural origin of the Romans,
writing that Romans had since the foundation of Rome welcomed innumerable immigrants not only from
the rest of Italy, but from the entire world, whose cultures merged with theirs.[21]
A handful of Roman authors, such as Tacitus and Suetonius, expressed concerns in their writings
concerning Roman "blood purity" as Roman citizens from outside of Roman Italy increased in number.
Neither author, however, suggested that the naturalisation of new citizens should stop, only that
manumissions (freeing slaves) and grants of citizenship should be less frequent. Their concerns of blood
purity did not match modern ideas of race or ethnicity, and had little to do with features such as skin colour
or physical appearance.[22] Terms such as "Aethiop", which Romans used for black people, carried no
social implications, and though phenotype-related stereotypes certainly existed in Ancient Rome, inherited
physical characteristics were typically not relevant to social status;[23] people who looked different from the
typical Mediterranean populace, such as black people, were not excluded from any profession and there are
no records of stigmas or biases against "mixed race" relationships.[24] The main dividing social differences
in Ancient Rome were not based on physical features, but rather on differences in class or rank. Romans
practised slavery extensively, but slaves in Ancient Rome were part of various different ethnic groups, and
were not enslaved because of their ethnic affiliation.[25] According to the English historian Emma Dench, it
was "notoriously difficult to detect slaves by their appearance" in Ancient Rome.[22]

Non-Romans

Although Ancient Rome has been termed an 'evidently non-racist

society',[23] Romans carried considerable cultural stereotypes and
prejudices against cultures and peoples that were not integrated into
the Roman world, i.e. "barbarians". Though views differed through
Roman history, the attitude towards peoples beyond the Roman
frontier among most Roman writers in late antiquity can be Coin of Emperor Constantine II
summed up with "the only good barbarian is a dead barbarian".[26] (r. 337–340), depicting the emperor
Throughout antiquity, the majority of Roman emperors included on horseback, trampling two
anti-barbarian imagery on their coinage, such as the emperor or barbarians (right)
Victoria (the personification and goddess of victory) being depicted
as stepping on or dragging defeated barbarian enemies.[27] Per the
writings of Cicero, what made people barbarians were not their language or descent, but rather their
customs and character, or lack thereof.[28] Romans viewed themselves as superior over foreigners, but this
stemmed not from perceived biological differences, but rather from what they perceived as a superior way
of life.[25] 'Barbarian' was as such a cultural, rather than biological, term. It was not impossible for a
barbarian to become a Roman; the Roman state was itself seen as having the duty to conquer and
transform, i.e. civilise, barbarian peoples.[29]

A particularly disliked group of non-Romans within the empire

were the Jews.[30] The majority of the Roman populace detested
Jews and Judaism, though views were more varied among the
Roman elite.[30] Although many, such as Tacitus, were also hostile
to the Jews,[31] others, such as Cicero, were merely
unsympathetically indifferent[32] and some did not consider the
Jews to be barbarians at all.[30] The Roman state was not wholly
opposed to the Jews, since there was a sizeable Jewish population Relief from the Arch of Titus
in Rome itself, as well as at least thirteen synagogues in the city.[33] depicting Romans looting the Temple
Roman antisemitism, which led to several persecutions and in Jerusalem
massacres, was not rooted in racial prejudice, but rather in the
perception that the Jews, uniquely among conquered peoples,
refused to integrate into the Roman world.[30] The Jews adhered to their own set of rules, restrictions and
obligations, which were typically either disliked or misunderstood by the Romans, and they remained
faithful to their own religion.[34] The exclusivist religious practices of the Jews, and their opposition to
abandoning their own customs in favour of those of Rome,[30] even after being conquered and repeatedly
suppressed,[34] evoked the suspicion of the Romans.[30]

Antiquity

Classical antiquity

Founding myths and Romans of the republic

The founding of Rome, and the history of the city and its people
throughout its first few centuries, is steeped in myth and
uncertainty. The traditional date for Rome's foundation, 753 BC,
and the traditional date for the foundation of the Roman Republic,
509 BC, though commonly used even in modern historiography,
are uncertain and mythical.[35][c] The myths surrounding Rome's
foundation combined, if not confused, several different stories,
going from the origins of the Latin people under a king by the
name Latinus, to Evander of Pallantium, who was said to have
brought Greek culture to Italy, and a myth of Trojan origin through
the heroic figure Aeneas. The actual mythical founder of the city
itself, Romulus, only appears many generations into the complex A late Republican banquet scene in a
web of foundation myths. Interpretations of these myths varied fresco from Herculaneum, Italy, c. 50
among authors in Antiquity,[d] but most agreed that their civilisation BC
had been founded by a mixture of migrants and fugitives. These
origin narratives would favour the later extensive integrations of
foreigners into the Roman world.[40]

The origins of the people that became the first Romans are clearer. As in neighbouring city-states, the early
Romans would have been composed mainly of Latin-speaking Italic people,[41][42] known as the Latins.
The Latins were a people with a marked Mediterranean character, related to some neighbouring Italic
peoples such as the Falisci.[43] The early Romans were part of the Latin homeland, known as Latium, and
were Latins themselves. By the time of the 6th century, the inhabitants of Rome had conquered and
destroyed all the other Latin settlements and communities such as Antemnae and Collatia and defeated the
hegemony of the settlement of Alba Longa, which had previously united the Latin people under its
leadership, a position that now belonged to Rome.[44]

From the middle of the 4th century onwards, Rome won a series of victories which saw them rise to rule all
of Italy south of the Po river by 270 BC. Following the conquest of Italy, the Romans waged war against
the great powers of their time; Carthage to the south and west and the various Hellenistic kingdoms to the
east, and by the middle of the second century BC, all rivals had been defeated and Rome became
recognised by other countries as the definite masters of the Mediterranean.[45] By the late 3rd century BC,
about a third of the people in Italy south of the Po river had been made Roman citizens, meaning that they
were liable for military service, and the rest had been made into allies, frequently called on to join Roman
wars.[45] These allies were eventually made Roman citizens as well after refusal by the Roman government
to make them so was met with the Social War, after which Roman citizenship was extended to all the
people south of the Po river.[46] In 49 BC, citizenship rights were also extended to the people of Cisalpine
Gaul by Julius Caesar.[47] The number of Romans would rapidly increase in later centuries through further
extensions of citizenship.[47] Typically, there were five different mechanisms for acquiring Roman
citizenship: serving in the Roman army, holding office in cities with the Latin right, being granted it directly
by the government, being part of a community that was granted citizenship as a "block grant" or, as a slave,
being freed by a Roman citizen.[48] Just as it could be gained, Roman status could also be lost, for instance
through engaging practices considered corrupt or by being carried off into captivity in enemy raids (though
one could again become a Roman upon returning from captivity).[49]

Romans of the early empire

Collections of female (top) and male (bottom) Roman busts in the Vatican Museums in Rome

In the early Roman Empire, the population was composed of several groups of distinct legal standing,
including the Roman citizens themselves (cives romani), the provincials (provinciales), foreigners
(peregrini) and free non-citizens such as freedmen (freed slaves) and slaves. Roman citizens were subject to
the Roman legal system while provincials were subject to whatever laws and legal systems had been in
place in their area at the time it was annexed by the Romans. Over time, Roman citizenship was gradually
extended more and more and there was a regular "siphoning" of people from less privileged legal groups to
more privileged groups, increasing the total percentage of subjects recognised as Romans though the
incorporation of the provinciales and peregrini.[50] The capability of the Roman Empire to integrate foreign
peoples was one of the key elements that ensured its success. In antiquity, it was significantly easier as a
foreigner to become a Roman than it was to become a member or citizen of any other contemporary state.
This aspect of the Roman state was seen as important even by some of the emperors.[51] For instance,
Emperor Claudius (r. 41–54) pointed it out when questioned by the senate on admitting Gauls to join the
senate:[51]

What else proved fatal to Lacedaemon or Athens, in spite of their power in arms, but their
policy of holding the conquered aloof as alien-born? But the sagacity of our own founder
Romulus was such that several times he fought and naturalized a people in the course of the
same day![51]

From the Principate (27 BC – AD 284) onwards, barbarians settled and integrated into the Roman world.
Such settlers would have been granted certain legal rights simply by being within Roman territory,
becoming provinciales and thus being eligible to serve as auxilia (auxiliary soldiers), which in turn made
them eligible to become full cives Romani. Through this relatively rapid process, thousands of former
barbarians could quickly become Romans. This tradition of straightforward integration eventually
culminated in the Antonine Constitution, issued by Emperor Caracalla in 212, in which all free inhabitants
of Empire were granted the citizenship.[52][53] Caracalla's grant contributed to a vast increase in the number
of people with the nomen (name indicating familial association) Aurelius.[54][e] By the time of the Antonine
Constitution, many people throughout the provinces already considered themselves (and were considered
by others) as Romans. Through the centuries of Roman expansion, large numbers of veterans and
opportunists had settled in the provinces and colonies founded by Julius Caesar and Augustus alone saw
between 500,000 and a million people from Italy settled in Rome's provinces. In AD 14, four to seven
percent of the free people in the provinces of the empire were already Roman citizens.[47] In addition to
colonists, many provincials had also become citizens through grants by emperors and through other
methods.[55]

In most cases, it is not clear to what extent the majority of the new
Roman citizens regarded themselves as being Roman, or to what
extent they were regarded as such by others.[11] For some
provincials under Roman rule, the only experience with "Romans"
prior to themselves being granted citizenship was through Rome's
at times coercive tax-collection system or its army, aspects which
were not assimilative in terms of forming an empire-spanning
collective identity.[56] Caracalla's grant marked a radical change in
imperial policy towards the provincials.[57] It is possible that
decades, and in many cases centuries, of Romanization through The Roman Empire in AD 117, at its
Rome's cultural influence had already begun the evolution of a greatest extent
"national" Roman identity before 212 and that the grant only made
the ongoing process legal,[58] but the grant might also have served
as the important prerequisite for a later nearly all-encompassing collective Roman identity. According to the
British jurist Tony Honoré, the grant "gave many millions, perhaps a majority of the empire's inhabitants
[…] a new consciousness of being Roman".[57] It is likely that local identities survived after Caracalla's
grant and remained prominent throughout the empire, but that self-identification as Roman provided a
larger sense of common identity and became important when dealing with and distinguishing oneself from
non-Romans, such as barbarian settlers and invaders.[12]

In many cases, ancient Romans associated the same things with

their identity as historians do today: the rich ancient Latin literature,
the impressive Roman architecture, the common marble statues, the
variety of cult sites, the Roman infrastructure and legal tradition, as
well as the almost corporate identity of the Roman army were all
cultural and symbolic ways to express Roman identity.[59]
Although there was a more or less unifying Roman identity, Roman
culture in classical times was also far from homogeneous. There
was a common cultural idiom, large portions of which was based in
earlier Hellenistic culture, but Rome's strength also laid in its Egyptian relief depicting Emperor
flexibility and its ability to incorporate traditions from other Trajan (r. 98–117; right) as a pharaoh
cultures. For instance, the religions of many conquered peoples
were embraced through amalgamations of the gods of foreign
pantheons with those of the Roman pantheon. In Egypt, Roman emperors were seen as the successors of
the pharaohs (in modern historiography termed the Roman pharaohs) and were depicted as such in artwork
and in temples. Many cults from the eastern Mediterranean and beyond spread to Western Europe over the
course of Roman rule.[60]

Late antiquity
 Once the very core of ancient Romanness, the city of Rome
gradually lost its exceptional status within the empire in late
antiquity.[61] By the end of the third century, the city's importance
was almost entirely ideological, and several emperors and usurpers
had begun reigning from other cities closer to the imperial
frontier.[62] Rome's loss of status was also reflected in the
perceptions of the city by the Roman populace. In the writings of
the 4th-century Greek-speaking Roman soldier and author
Ammianus Marcellinus, Rome is described almost like a foreign
city, with disparaging comments on its corruption and impurity.[61]
Few Romans in late antiquity embodied all aspects of traditional
Romanness. Many of them would have come from remote or less
prestigious provinces and practiced religions and cults unheard of
in Rome itself. Many of them would also have spoken 'barbarian
languages' or Greek instead of Latin.[63] Few inscriptions from late
antiquity explicitly identify individuals as 'Roman citizens' or
'Romans'. Before the Antonine Constitution, being a Roman had
been a mark of distinction and often stressed, but after the 3rd
4th-century portrait of a woman from century Roman status went without saying. This silence does not
Roman Egypt mean that Romanness no longer mattered in the late Roman
Empire, but rather that it had become less distinctive than other
more specific marks of identity (such as local identities) and only
needed to be stresssed or highlighted if a person had recently become a Roman, or if the Roman status of a
person was in doubt.[64] The prevalent view of the Romans themselves was that the populus Romanus, or
Roman people, were a "people by constitution", as opposed to the barbarian peoples who were gentes,
"peoples by descent" (i. e. ethnicities).[65]

Given that Romanness had become near-universal within the empire, local identities became more and
more prominent.[64] In the late Roman Empire, one could identify as a Roman as a citizen of the empire, as
a person originating from one of the major regions (Africa, Britannia, Gaul, Hispania etc.) or as originating
from a specific province or city.[66][f] Though the Romans themselves did not see them as equivalent
concepts, there is no fundamental difference between such Roman sub-identities and the gens identities
ascribed to barbarians.[67] In some cases, Roman authors ascribed different qualities to citizens of different
parts of the empire, such as Ammianus Marcellinus who wrote of the differences between 'Gauls' and
'Italians'.[66] In the late Roman army, there were regiments named after Roman sub-identities, such as
'Celts' and 'Batavians', as well as regiments named after barbarian gentes, such as the Franks or Saxons.[68]

The Roman army underwent considerable changes in the 4th

century, experiencing what some have called 'barbarisation',[68]
traditionally understood as the result of recruitments of large
amounts of barbarian soldiers.[69] Though barbarian origins were
seldom forgotten, the large scale and meritocratic nature of the
Roman army made it relatively easy for "barbarian" recruits to enter
the army and rise through the ranks only thougth their skills and
achievements.[70][g] It is not clear to what extent there was actual
non-Roman influence on the military; it is plausible that extensive
numbers of barbarians were made part of the normal Roman Late Roman soldiers, possibly of
military but it is equally plausible that there was also, or instead, a barbarian origin, as depicted in a
certain 'barbarian chic' in the army, comparable to the 19th-century relief by Emperor Theodosius I
French Zouaves (French military units in North Africa who (r. 379–395)
adopted native clothing and cultural practices).[68] The rise of non-
Roman customs in the Roman military might not have resulted
from increasing numbers of barbarian recruits, but rather from Roman military units along the imperial
borders forming their own distinctive identities.[72] In the late empire, the term "barbarian" was sometimes
used in a general sense by Romans not in the military for Roman soldiers stationed alongside the imperial
border, in reference to their perceived aggressive nature.[73] No matter the reason, the Roman military
increasingly came to embody 'barbarian' aspects that in previous times had been considered antithetical to
the Roman ideal.[68] Such aspects included emphasising strength and thirst for battle, as well as the
assumption of "barbarian" strategies and customs, such as the barritus (a formerly Germanic battle cry), the
Schilderhebung (raising an elected emperor up on a shield) as well as Germanic battle formations. The
assumption of these customs might instead of barbarisation be attributable to the Roman army simply
adopting customs it found useful, a common practice. Some barbarian soldiers recruited into the Roman
army proudly embraced Roman identification[h] and in some cases, the barbarian heritage of certain late
Roman individuals was even completely ignored in the wider Roman world.[i]

The Chi Rho as depicted on a 4th-century sacrophagus (left) and the spread of Christianity from AD 325 (dark
blue) to AD 600 (light blue) (right)

Religion had always been an important marker of Romanness. As Christianity gradually became the
dominant religion in the Roman Empire through late antiquity, and eventually became the only legal faith,
the Christianised Roman aristocracy had to redefine their Roman identity in Christian terms. The rise of
Christianity did not go unnoticed or unchallenged by the conservative elements of the pagan Roman elite,
who became aware that power was slipping from their hands. Many of them, pressured by the increasingly
anti-pagan and militant Christians, turned to emphasising that they were the only 'true Romans' as they
preserved the traditional Roman religion and literary culture.[77] According to the Roman statesman and
orator Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (c. 345–402), true Romans were those who followed the traditional
Roman way of life, including its ancient religions, and it was adherence to those religions that in the end
would protect the empire from its enemies, as in previous centuries. Per Symmachus and his supporters,
Romanness had nothing to do with Christianity, but depended on Rome's pagan past and its status as the
heart of a vast and polytheistic empire.[78] The ideas of Symmachus were not popular among the
Christians. Some church leaders, such as Ambrose, the Archbishop of Mediolanum, launched formal and
vicious assaults on paganism and those members of the elite which defended it. Like Symmachus, Ambrose
saw Rome as the greatest city of the Roman Empire, but not because of its pagan past but because of its
Christian present. Throughout late antiquity, Romanness became increasingly defined by Christian faith,
which would eventually become the standard.[79] The status of Christianity was much increased through
the adoption of the religion by the Roman emperors.[80] Throughout late antiquity, the emperors and their
courts were viewed as the Romans par excellence.[81]

As the Roman Empire lost, or ceded control of, territories to various barbarian rulers, the status of the
Roman citizens in those provinces sometimes came into question. People born as Roman citizens in regions
that then came under barbarian control could be subjected to the same prejudice as barbarians were.[82][j]
Over the course of the Roman Empire, men from nearly all of its provinces had come to rule as emperors.
As such, Roman identity remained political, rather than ethnic, and open to people of various origins. This
nature of Roman identity ensured that there was never a strong consolidation of a 'core identity' of Romans
in Italy, but also likely contributed to the long-term endurance and success of the Roman state. The fall of
the Western Roman Empire coincided with the first time the Romans actively excluded an influential
foreign group within the empire, the barbarian and barbarian-descended generals of the 5th century, from
Roman identity and access to the Roman imperial throne.[83]

Later history
The Roman Empire's expansion facilitated the spread of Roman identity over a large stretch of territories
that had never before had a common identity and never would again. The effects of Roman rule on the
personal identities of the empire's subjects was considerable and the resulting Roman identity outlasted
actual imperial control by several centuries.[84]

Western Europe

Early endurance of Roman identity

From the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th
century to the wars of Emperor Justinian I in the 6th century, the
predominant structure of societies in the west was a near-
completely barbarian military but also a near-completely Roman
civil administration and aristocracy.[85] The new Barbarian rulers
took steps to present themselves as legitimate rulers within the
Roman framework,[86] with the pretense of legitimacy being
especially strong among the rulers of Italy.[87] The early kings of
Italy, first Odoacer and then Theoderic the Great, were legally and
ostensibly viceroys of the eastern emperor and thus integrated into
the Roman government. Like the western emperors before them,
they continued to appoint western consuls, which were accepted in
the east and by the other barbarian kings.[88] The imperial court in
the east extended various honours to powerful barbarian rulers in
the west, which was interpreted by the barbarians as enhancing
their legitimacy; something they used to justify territorial
expansion.[89] In the early 6th century, Clovis I of the Franks and
Theoderic the Great of the Ostrogoths nearly went to war with each Consular diptych of Rufius
other, a conflict that could have resulted in the re-establishment of Gennadius Probus Orestes, a
the western empire under either king.[90] Concerned about such a Roman consul appointed during the
prospect, the eastern court never again extended similar honours to time that Rome was under
Ostrogothic rule
western rulers,[89] instead beginning to emphasise its own
exclusive Roman legitimacy, which it would continue to do for the
rest of its history.[90]

Culturally and legally, Roman identity remained prominent in the west for centuries,[91] still providing a
sense of unity throughout the Mediterranean.[81] Italy's Ostrogothic Kingdom preserved the Roman Senate,
which often dominated politics in Rome,[92] illustrating the survival of and continued respect for Roman
institutions and identity.[93] The barbarian kings continued to use Roman law throughout the early Middle
Ages,[91] often issuing their own law collections. In 6th-century law collections issued by the Visigoths in
Spain and the Franks in Gaul, it is clear that there were still large populations identifying as Romans in
these regions given that the law collections distinguish between barbarians who live by their own laws and
Romans who live by Roman law.[91] Even after Italy was conquered by the Lombards in the late 6th
century, the continued administration and urbanisation of northern Italy attest to a continued survival of
Roman institutions and values.[93] It was still possible for non-citizens (such as barbarians) in the west to
become Roman citizens well into the 7th and 8th centuries; several surviving Visigothic and Frankish
documents explain the benefits of becoming a Roman citizen and there are records of rulers and nobles
freeing slaves and making them into citizens.[94] Despite this, Roman identity was in a steep decline by the
7th and 8th centuries.[k]

Disappearances of Roman identity

The great turning point in the history of the latter-day Romans of

the west was the wars of Justinian I (533–555), aimed at
reconquering the lost provinces of the Western Roman Empire.[95]
During Justinian's early reign, eastern authors re-wrote 5th-century
history to portray the west as "lost" to barbarian invasions, rather
The 6th-century reconquests of than attempting to further integrate the barbarian rulers into the
Emperor Justinian I (in yellow) Roman world.[90] By the end of the Justinianic wars, imperial
control had returned to northern Africa and Italy, but the wars being
founded on the idea that anything outside of the eastern empire's
direct control was no longer part of the Roman Empire meant that there could no longer be any doubt that
the lands beyond the imperial frontier were no longer Roman and instead remained "lost to barbarians". As
a result, Roman identity in the still barbarian-ruled regions (i.e. Gaul, Spain and Britain) declined
dramatically.[95] During the reconquest of Italy, the Roman Senate disappeared and most of its members
moved to Constantinople. Though the senate achieved a certain legacy in the west,[l] the end of the
institution removed a group that had always set the standard of what Romanness was supposed to mean.[96]
The war in Italy also divided the Roman elite there between those who enjoyed barbarian rule and those
who supported the empire and later withdrew to imperial territory, meaning that Roman identity ceased to
provide a sense of social and political cohesion.[96]

The division of Western Europe into multiple different kingdoms accelerated the disappearance of Roman
identity, as the previously unifying identity was replaced by local identities based on the region one was
from. The fading connectivitiy also meant that while largely Roman law and culture continued on, the
language became increasingly fragmented and split, Latin gradually developing into what would become
the modern Romance languages.[17][97] Where they had once been the majority of the population, the
Romans of Gaul and Hispania gradually and quietly faded away as their descendants adopted other names
and identities.[97] In Sub-Roman Britain, the people of the large urban centers clinged to Roman identity,
but rural populations integrated and assimilated with Germanic colonisers (the Jutes, Angles and Saxons).
Once the large cities declined, Roman identity faded away in Britain as well.[98]

The adoption of local identities in Gaul and Hispania was made more attractive in that they were not binary
opposed to the identity of the barbarian rulers in the same way that 'Roman' was; for instance, one could
not be both Roman and Frankish, but it was possible to, for instance, be both Arvernian (i.e. from
Auvergne) and Frankish.[99] In Hispania, "Gothic" transitioned from simply an ethnic identity to being
both an ethnic one (in the sense of descent from Goths) and a political one (in the sense of allegiance to the
king). Gothic becoming more fluid and multi-dimensional as an identity facilitated a smooth transition from
people identifying as Romans to people identifying as Goths.[100] There were few differences between the
Goths and the Romans of Hispania at this point; the Visigoths no longer practised Arian Christianity and
Romans, just like the Goths, were from the 6th century onwards allowed to serve in the military. Though
Roman identity was rapidly disappearing, the Visigothic Kingdom in the 6th and 7th centuries thus also
produced several prominent latter-day Roman generals, such as Claudius and Paulus.[101]
The disappearance of the Romans is reflected in the barbarian law collections. In the Salic law of Clovis I
(from around 500), the Romans and the Franks are the two major parallel populations of the kingdom and
both have well-defined legal statuses. A century later in the Lex Ripuaria, the Romans are just one of many
smaller semi-free populations, restricted in their legal capacity, with many of their former advantages now
associated with Frankish identity. Such legal arrangements would have been unthinkable under the Roman
Empire and under the early decades of barbarian rule.[102][99] By Charlemagne's imperial coronation in
800, Roman identity largely disappeared in Western Europe and fell to low social status.[103][104][m] The
situation was somewhat paradoxical: living Romans, in Rome and elsewhere, had a poor reputation, with
records of anti-Roman attacks and the use of 'Roman' as an insult, but the name of Rome was also used a
source of great and unfailing political power and prestige, employed by many aristocratic families
(sometimes proudly proclaiming invented Roman origins) and rulers throughout history.[103] Through
suppressing Roman identity in the lands they ruled and discounting the remaining empire in the east as
"Greek", the Frankish state hoped to avoid the possibility of the Roman people proclaiming a Roman
emperor in the same way that the Franks proclaimed a Frankish king.[106]

Reversion to Rome proper

The population of the city of Rome continued to identify, and be

identified, as Romans by westerners. Although Rome's past history
was not forgotten, the city's importance in the Middle Ages
primarily stemmed from it being the seat of the pope,[n] a view
shared by both westerners and the eastern empire.[107][108] During
the centuries following Justinian's reconquest, when the city was
still under imperial control, the population was not specially
administered and did not not have any political participation in
wider imperial affairs.[108] When clashing with the emperors, the
popes sometimes employed the fact that they had the backing of the
populus Romanus ("people of Rome") as a legitimising factor,
meaning that the city still endured some ideological importance in Personifications of (from left to right)
terms of Romanness. [109] Western European authors and the Slavic, German, Gallic (French)
intellectuals increasingly associated Romanness only with the city and Roman peoples, depicted as
[107][o] bringing gifts to Holy Roman
itself. By the second half of the 8th century, westerners
Emperor Otto III
almost exclusively used the term to refer to the population of the
city.[108] When the temporal power of the papacy was established
through the foundation of the Papal States in the 8th century, the popes used the fact that they were
accompanied and supported by the populus Romanus as something that legitimised their sovereignty.[108]

The Roman populace considered neither the eastern empire nor Charlemagne's new "Holy Roman Empire"
to be properly Roman.[110] Though the continuity from Rome to Constantinople was accepted in the
west,[111] surviving sources point to the easterners being seen as Greeks who had abandoned Rome and
Roman identity.[110] The Carolingian kings on the other hand were seen as having more to do with the
Lombard kings of Italy than the ancient Roman emperors.[111] The medieval Romans also often equated
the Franks with the ancient Gauls, and viewed them as aggressive, insolent and vain.[112] Despite this, the
Holy Roman emperors were recognised by the citizens of Rome as true Roman emperors,[p] albeit only
because of their support and coronation by the popes.[110]

The Franks and other westerners did not view the population of Rome favourably either. Foreign sources
are generally hostile, ascribing traits such as unrest and deceit to the Romans and describing them as "as
proud as they are helpless". Anti-Roman sentiment lasted throughout the Middle Ages.[q] The Romans
partly owed their bad reputation to sometimes trying to take an independent position towards the popes of
the Holy Roman emperors. Given that these rulers were seen as having universal power, the Romans were
considered intruders in affairs that exceeded their competence.[113]

North Africa

Unlike the other kingdoms, the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa

did not maintain a pretense of loyalty to the Roman Empire. Since
the term 'Roman' was seen as implying political loyalty to the
empire, it was regarded by the Vandal government as politically
loaded and suspicious. As a consequence, the Roman population of
the kingdom rarely self-identified as such,[114] though important
Coin of the Vandal king Hilderic (r.
markers of Romanness, such as Roman naming customs, adherence
523–530). The reverse depicts a
personification of Carthage and is
to Nicene Christianity as well as the Latin-language literary
inscribed Felix Karthago ("fortunate tradition,[r] survived throughout the kingdom's existence.[116]
Carthage"). Despite objections to 'Roman' as a term for the populace, the
Vandals partly appealed to Roman legitimacy to legitimise
themselves as rulers, given that the Vandal kings had marriage
connections to the imperial Theodosian dynasty. However, the Vandal state more strongly worked to
legitimise itself through appealing to the pre-Roman cultural elements of the region, particularly the
Carthaginian Empire. Some symbols of the ancient state were revived and the city of Carthage, capital of
the kingdom, was heavily emphasised in poetry, on coinage and in the creation of a new "Carthaginian
calendar". Coins minted by the Vandals were inscribed with Felix Karthago ("fortunate Carthage") and
Carthagine Perpetua ("Carthage eternal").[117]

The Vandalic promotion of independent African symbols had a profound effect on the formerly Roman
populace of their kingdom.[118] By the time the soldiers of the eastern empire landed in Africa during
Justinian's Vandalic War, the Romance people of North Africa had ceased to identify as Romans, instead
preferring either Libyans (Libicus) or Punic people (Punicus). Contemporary eastern authors also described
them as Libyans (Λίβυες).[118] During the Vandal Kingdom's brief existence, the Vandal ruling class had
culturally and ethnically merged with the Romano-Africans. By the time the kingdom fell, the only real
cultural differences between the "Libyans" and "Vandals" were that Vandals adhered to Arian Christianity
and were permitted to serve in the army.[119] After North Africa was reincorporated into the empire, the
eastern Roman government deported the Vandals from the region, which shortly thereafter led to
disappearance of the Vandals as a distinct group. The only individuals recorded to have been deported were
soldiers; given that the wives and children of the "Vandals" thus remained in North Africa, the name at this
stage appears to mainly have denoted the soldier class.[120]

Despite North Africa's reincorporation into the empire, the distinction between "Libyans" and "Romans"
(i.e. the inhabitants of the eastern empire) was maintained by both groups. Per the writings of the 6th-
century eastern historian Procopius, the Libyans were descended from Romans, ruled by the Romans, and
served in the Roman army, but their Romanness had diverged too much from that of the populace of the
empire as a result of the century of Vandal rule. Imperial policy reflected the view that the North Africans
were no longer Romans. Whereas governors in the eastern provinces were often native to their respective
provinces, the military and administrative staff in North Africa was almost entirely constituted by
easterners.[121] The imperial government distrusting the locals was hardly surprising given that imperial
troops had been harassed by local (formerly Roman) peasants during the Vandalic War, supportive of the
Vandal regime, and that there had been several rebels thereafter, such as Guntarith and Stotzas, who sought
to restore an independent kingdom.[122] The distinction between the Romans and the Romance people of
North Africa is also reflected in foreign sources, and the two populations appear to not yet have been
reconciled by the time the African provinces fell during the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb and Roman
rule was terminated.[121][s]

Eastern Mediterranean

Survival of the Roman Empire in the east

Eastern Mediterranean populations, which remained under Eastern

Roman (or "Byzantine") control after the 5th century, retained
"Roman" as their predominant identity;[123] the majority of the
population saw themselves as being Roman beyond any doubt and
their emperor as ruling from the cultural and religious center of the
Roman Empire: Constantinople, the New Rome.[124] In the
Coin depicting emperors Constans II
centuries when the Byzantine Empire was still a vast
(r. 641–668) and Constantine IV
Mediterranean-spanning state, Roman identity was more strong in (r. 668–685). The coin is inscribed
the imperial heartlands than on the peripheries,[t] though it was also with the Latin phrase Deus adiuta
strongly embraced in the peripheral regions in times of Romanis ("May God help the
uncertainty.[123][u] As in earlier centuries, the Romans of the early Romans").
Byzantine Empire were considered a people united by being
subjects of the Roman state, rather than a people united through
sharing ethnic descent (i.e. gens like those ascribed to different barbarian groups).[65][v] The term extended
to all Christian citizens of the empire, in a general sense referring to those who followed Chalcedonian
Christianity and were loyal to the emperor.[126]

In Byzantine writings up until at least the 12th century, the idea of the Roman "homeland" consistently
referred not to Greece or Italy, but to the entire old Roman world.[127][w] Despite this, the Romans of
Byzantium were also aware that their present empire was no longer as powerful as it once had been, and
that centuries of warfare and strife had left the Roman Empire reduced in territory and somewhat
humbled.[129]

Given that the rulers of the Byzantine Empire were predominantly Hellenic, and the percentage of the
population that was Hellenic became greater as the empire's borders were increasingly reduced, Western
Europeans, from as early as the 6th century onwards,[x] often referred to it as a Greek empire, inhabited by
Greeks. To the early Byzantines themselves, up until the 11th century or so, terms such as "Greeks" and
"Hellenes" were seen as offensive, as it downplayed their Roman nature and furthermore associated them
with the ancient Pagan Greeks rather than the more recent Christian Romans.[131] The westerners were not
unaware of Byzantium's Romanness; when not wishing to distance themselves from the eastern empire, the
term Romani was frequently used for soldiers and subjects of the eastern emperors.[106] From the 6th to 8th
century, western authors also sometimes employed terms such as res publica or sancta res publica for the
Byzantine Empire, still identifying it with the old Roman Republic. Such references ceased as Byzantine
control of Italy and Rome itself crumbled and the Papacy began to use the term for their own, much more
regional, domain and sphere of influence.[109]

After the Muslim conquests

As the Byzantine Empire lost its territories in Egypt, the Levant and Italy, the Christians who lived in those
regions ceased to be recognised by the Byzantine government as Romans,[129] much in the same vein as
had happened with the North Africans under Vandal rule.[118] The decrease in the diversity of peoples
recognised as being Roman meant that the term Roman increasingly came to be applied only to the now
dominant Hellenic population of the remaining territories, rather
than to all imperial citizens.[129] As the Hellenic populace were
united by following Orthodox Christianity, spoke the same Greek
language, and believed that they shared a common ethnic
origin,[132] "Roman" (Rhōmaîoi in Greek)[123] thus gradually
transformed into an ethnic identity.[133] By the late 7th century,
Greek, rather than Latin, had begun being referred to in the east as
the rhomaisti (Roman way of speaking).[129] In chronicles written
in the 10th century, the Rhōmaîoi begin to appear as just one of the
ethnicities in the empire (alongside, for instance, Armenians) and
by the late 11th century, there are references in historical writings to
people as being "Rhōmaîos by birth", signalling the completion of
the transformation of "Roman" into an ethnic description. At this
point, "Roman" also began being used for Greek populations
outside of the imperial borders, such as to the Greek-speaking
Christians under Seljuk rule in Anatolia, who were referred to as
Rhōmaîoi despite actively resisting attempts at re-integration by the
15th-century miniature depicting
Byzantine emperors.[134] Only a handful of late sources retain the
Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos
old view of a Roman being a citizen of the Roman world.[133][y]
(r. 1391–1425) and his family. The
text titles him as "Emperor and
The capture of Constantinople by the non-Roman Latin crusaders
Autocrat of the Romans" and
of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 ended the unbroken Roman
"forever Augustus".
continuity from Rome to Constantinople. In order to legitimise
themselve as Romans in the decades when they no longer
controlled Constantinople, the Byzantine elite began to look to other markers of what Romans were. The
elites of the Empire of Nicaea, the Byzantine government-in-exile, chiefly looked to Greek cultural heritage
and Orthodox Christianity, connecting the contemporary Romans to the ancient Greeks. This contributed to
Romanness becoming even more increasingly associated with people who were ethno-culturally Hellenic.
Under the Nicene emperors John III (r. 1222–1254) and Theodore II (r. 1254–1258), these ideas were
taken further than ever before as they explicitly stated that the present Rhōmaîoi were Hellenes,
descendants of the Ancient Greeks.[135] Though they saw themselves as Hellenic, the Nicene emperors
also maintained that they were the only true Roman emperors. "Roman" and "Hellenic" were not viewed
as opposing terms, but building blocks of the same double-identity.[136] During the rule of the Palaiologos
dynasty, from the recapture of Constantinople in 1261 to the fall of the empire in 1453, Hellene lost ground
as a self-identity, with few known uses of the term, and Rhōmaîoi once again became the dominant term
used for self-description.[137] Some Byzantine authors went as far as to return to using "Hellenic" and
"Greek" solely as terms for the ancient pagan Greeks.[138][z]

After the fall of Constantinople

Rhōmaîoi survived the fall of the Byzantine Empire as the primary

self-designation of the Christian Greek inhabitants of the new
Turkish Ottoman Empire. The popular historical memory of these
Romans was not occupied with the glorious past of the Roman
Empire of old or the Hellenism in the Byzantine Empire, but
focused on legends of the fall and the loss of their Christian Ottoman Greeks in Constantinople,
homeland and Constantinople. One such narrative was the myth painted by Luigi Mayer (1755–1803)
that the last emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos would one day
return from the dead to reconquer the city,[139] a myth that endured
in Greek folklore up until the time of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) and beyond.[140]
In the early modern period, many Ottoman Turks, especially those who lived in the cities and were not part
of the military or administration, also self-identified as Romans (Rūmī, ‫)روﻣﻰ‬, as inhabitants of former
Byzantine territory.[141] The term Rūmī had originally been used by muslims for Christians in general,
though later became restricted to just the Byzantines.[142] After 1453, the term was not only sometimes a
Turkish self-identification, but it was also used to refer to Ottoman Turks by other Islamic states and
peoples.[141] The identification of the Ottomans with the Romans was also made outside of the Islamic
world. 16th-century Portuguese sources refer to the Ottomans they battled in the Indian Ocean as
"rumes"[143] and the Chinese Ming dynasty referred to the Ottomans as Lumi ( 魯迷 ), a transliteration of
Rūmī, and to Constantinople as Lumi cheng ( 魯迷城 , "Lumi city").[144] As applied to Ottoman Turks,
Rūmī began to fall out of use at the end of the 17th century, and instead the word increasingly became
associated only with the Greek population of the empire, a meaning that it still bears in Turkey today.[145]

As applied to the Greeks, the self-identity as Romans endured longer, and for a long time there was
widespread hope that the Romans would be liberated and that their empire would be restored.[146][aa] By
the time of the Greek War of Independence, the dominant self-identity of the Greeks was still Rhōmaîoi or
Romioi.[147]

Modern identity
The citizens of the city of Rome, though identifying nationally and
ethnically as Italians, continue to identify with the demonym
'Roman' to this day. Rome is the most populous city in Italy with
the city proper being home to about 2.8 million citizens and the
Rome metropolitan area to over four million people.[148] Since the
collapse of Roman political dominion, governments inspired by the
ancient Roman Republic have been revived in the city four times.
The earliest such government was the Commune of Rome in the
Proclamation of the Roman Republic 12th century, founded as opposition towards the temporal powers
in 1849 in Piazza del Popolo, Rome of the Pope, which was followed by the government of Cola di
Rienzo, who used the titles of 'tribune' and 'senator', in the 14th
century, a sister republic to revolutionary France in the 18th
century, which restored the office of Roman consul, and finally as the short-lived Roman Republic in 1849,
with a government based on the triumvirates of ancient Rome.[149][150][151]

Roman self-identification among Greeks only began losing ground with the Greek War of Independence,
when multiple factors saw the name 'Hellene' rise to replace it. Among these factors were that names such
as "Hellene", "Hellas" and "Greece" were already in use for the country and its people by the other nations
in Europe, the absence of the old Byzantine government to reinforce Roman identity, and the term Romioi
becoming associated with those Greeks still under Ottoman rule rather than those actively fighting for
independence. Thus, in the eyes of the independence movement, a Hellene was a brave and rebellious
freedom fighter while a Roman was an idle slave under the Ottomans.[152][153] The new Hellenic national
identity was heavily focused on the cultural heritage of ancient Greece rather than medieval Byzantium,
though adherence to Orthodox Christianity remained an important aspect of Greek identity.[154] An identity
re-oriented towards ancient Greece also worked in Greece's favour internationally. In Western Europe, the
Greek War of Independence saw large-scale support owing to philhellenism, a sense of "civilisational debt"
to the world of classical antiquity, rather than any actual interest in the modern country. Despite the modern
Greeks bearing more resemblance to the medieval Byzantines than the Greeks of the ancient world, public
interest in the revolt elsewhere in Europe hinged almost entirely on sentimental and intellectual attachments
to a romanticised version of ancient Greece. Comparable uprisings against the Ottomans by other peoples
in the Balkans, such as the First Serbian Uprising (1804–1814), had been almost entirely ignored in
Western Europe.[155]
Many Greeks, particularly those outside the then newly founded Greek state, continued to refer to
themselves as Romioi well into the 20th century.[ab] What Greek identity ought to be remained unresolved
for a long time. As late as the 1930s, more than a century of the war of independence, Greek artists and
authors still debated the contribution of Greece to European culture, and whether it should derive from a
romantic fascination with classical antiquity, a nationalist dream of a restored Byzantine Empire, the strong
oriental influence from the centuries of Ottoman rule or if it should be something entirely new, or
"Neohellenic", reminding Europe that there was not only an ancient Greece, but also a modern one.[157]
The modern Greek people still sometimes use Romioi to refer to themselves, as well as the term "Romaic"
("Roman") to refer to their Modern Greek language.[158] Roman identity also survives prominently in some
of the Greek populations outside of Greece itself. For instance, Greeks in Ukraine, settled there as part of
Catherine the Great's Greek Plan in the 18th century, maintain Roman identity, designating themselves as
Rumaioi.[159] The term Rum or Rumi also sees continued usage by Turks and Arabs as a religious term for
followers of the Greek Orthodox Church, not only those of Greek ethnicity.[160]

The vast majority of the Romance peoples that descended from the
intermingling of Romans and Germanic peoples following the
collapse of Roman political unity in the west diverged into groups
that no longer identify as Romans. In the Alpine regions north of
Italy however, Roman identity showed considerable tenacity.[15]
The Romansh people of Switzerland are descended from these
populations,[15][161] which in turn were descended from
Romanised Rhaetians.[161] Though most of the Romans of the
region were assimilated by the Germanic tribes that settled there
during the 5th and 6th centuries, the people who resisted Language map of Switzerland, with
assimilation became the Romansh people. In their own, Romansh Romansh in green and French
(Romandy) in blue
language, they are called rumantsch or romontsch, which derives
from the Latin romanice ("Romance").[161] Roman identity also
survives in the Romands, the French-speaking community of
Switzerland, and their homeland, Romandy, which covers the western part of the country.[162]

In some regions, the Germanic word for the Romans (also used for western neighbours in general), walhaz,
became an ethnonym, although it is in many cases only attested centuries after the end of Roman rule in
said regions. The term walhaz is the origin of the modern term 'Welsh', i.e. the people of Wales, and of the
historical exonym 'Vlach', which was used through the Middle Ages and the Modern Period for various
Balkan Romance peoples.[13] As endonyms, Roman identification was maintained by several Balkan
Romance peoples. Prominently, the Romanians call themselves români and their nation România.[163]
How and when the Romanians came to adopt these names is not entirely clear,[ac] but one theory is the idea
of Daco-Roman continuity, that the modern Romanians are descended from Daco-Romans that came about
as a result of Roman colonisation following the conquest of Dacia by Trajan (r. 98–117).[165] The
Aromanians, also of unclear origin, refer to themselves by various names, including arumani, armani,
aromani and rumani, all of which are etymologically derived from the Latin Rōmānī.[166] The Istro-
Romanians sometimes identify as rumeri or similar terms, though these names have lost strength and Istro-
Romanians often identify with their native villages instead.[167] The Megleno-Romanians also identified as
rumâni in the past, though this name was mostly replaced in favour of the term vlasi centuries ago.[168]
Vlasi is derived from "Vlach",[168] in turn deriving from walhaz.[13]

See also
List of ancient Italic peoples
Romance-speaking world
Pan-Latinism
Notes
a. The official languages of the Roman Empire were Latin and Greek.[1]
b. Though not an ethnicity in the sense of sharing the same genetic descent, the Romans
could, per Diemen (2021) and others, be seen as an ethnicity in the sense of "a social
identity (based on a contrast vis‐à‐vis others) characterised by metaphoric or fictive
kinship".[3]
c. The 753 BC figure for Rome's foundation was first suggested by the antiquarian Titus
Pomponius Atticus (c. 110–32 BC), and then adopted by the scholar Marcus Terentius Varro
(116–27 BC), coming to be known as the 'Varronian chronology'.[36][35] There were several
alternate proposed dates for the foundation of the city and of the republic even in
antiquity.[35] The chronology of Atticus and Varro was not universally adopted until a
considerable amount of time after it had first been suggested.[35] Dates suggested by other
ancient authors range in time from 814 to 729 BC.[37] In the earliest Greek accounts of
Roman history, formulated in the 5th century BC, the Greeks believed Rome to predate their
own colonies in the western mediterranean, which would place the city's foundation before
the 8th century BC. An early date is not impossible given that archaeological evidence in
Rome confirms that the site was at least inhabited prior to 753 BC.[38]
d. Some Roman authors, such as Livy (64/59 BC – AD 12/17) attempted to combine the
foundation myths into relatively straightforward stories, whereas others, such as the author of
the 4th-century AD Origo gentis Romanae, leave the contradictions open.[39]
e. Though it is well-established in modern historiography, "Caracalla" was a nickname for the
emperor, whose actual name was Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus.[54]
f. The 6th-century Gallo-Roman historian Gregory of Tours in his writings consistently
identifies himself as an 'Arvernian' rather than as a Roman. Though Gregory rarely
discusses ethnic identities in his writings, with only a handful of references to various
barbarian gentes, types of identity that evidently mattered a lot to him were civititas, which
city or settlement one was from, and ducatus, a slightly wider stretch of territory (such as the
region of Champagne).[67]
g. Sometimes the inclusion of barbarian elements in the Roman army became awkward due to
the prevailing anti-barbarian stereotypes. In the 4th-century civil war between Theodosius I
(r. 379–395) and Magnus Maximus (r. 383–388), the army of Magnus Maximus was
composed solely of Roman soldiers whereas the victorious Theodosius bolstered his forces
with Gothic soldiers. Given the negative stereotypes, the panegyrist Latinius Pacatus
Drepanius (fl. 389–393) described the troops of Maximus as having 'lost' their Romanness
due to following the usurper, while emphasising the Roman qualities of the Gothic soldiers
(though despite their loyalty, Pacatus never describes them as 'Roman'), describing them as
uncharacteristically loyal for barbarians, disciplined and following orders. Though their
barbarian nature is repeatedly emphasised, the Roman qualities of the Gothic warriors
means that the army of Theodosius, in the view of Pacatus, remained fundamentally Roman.
Per Pacatus, the remaining troops of Maximus were pardoned by Theodosius after the
defeat of the usurper, and through this became Roman again. For people born within the
empire, virtue and following the right Roman leader was thus seen by Pacatus as enough to
be Roman, but for the barbarian troops who exhibited the same qualities it was not.[71]
h. For instance, a 3rd-century funerary inscription from Pannonia reads Francus ego cives
Romanus miles in armis, which translates to "I, a Frank, a Roman citizen, a soldier in
arms".[74]
 i. The barbarian heritage of Flavius Stilicho (c. 359–408), whose father was a Vandal but
mother a Roman, regent in the Western Roman Empire during the early reign of Honorius
(r. 393–423), was not a matter of debate until after his fall from grace and execution in
408.[75] During his tenure as regent, Stilicho was repeatedly compared to heroes of the
ancient Roman Republic, such as Scipio Africanus.[76]
j. The prominent late Roman figure Orestes (died 476) was born a Roman citizen in Pannonia
and spoke Latin as his native language. In the 430s, Pannonia was ceded to Attila the Hun,
whom Orestes came to serve as a secretary. Though there is no reason to believe that
Orestes himself ever doubted his own Romanness, the loss of his native province to the
barbarians and his own personal association with Attila led to Orestes becoming the target
of the same prejudice against non-Romans as the barbarians were, with records of Orestes
being offended at being treated worse at the imperial court than the Hunnic warriors who
accompanied him.[82] Despite this, Orestes remained fundamentally Roman in his outlook,
and in time even became a general of the empire. In 475, Orestes installed his son, Romulus
Augustulus, as the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire.[81]
k. A well-documented case of the Romans "disappearing" is northern Gaul in the 6th and 7th
centuries. In the 6th century, the personnel of churches in the region was dominated by
people with Roman names. For instance, only a handful of non-Roman and non-Biblical
names are recorded in the episcopal list of Metz from before the year 600. After 600, the
situation is reversed and bishops had predominantly Frankish names. The reason for this
change in naming practices might be a change in naming practices in Gaul, that people
entering church services no longer adopted Roman names or that the Roman families which
had provided the church personnel dropped in status.[95]
l. In Gaul, members of the aristocracy were sometimes identified as "senators" from the 5th
century to the 7th century and the Carolingian dynasty claimed to be descended from a
former Roman senatorial family. In Spain, references to people of "senatorial stock" appear
as late as the 7th century and in Lombard Italy, "Senator" became a personal name, with at
least two people known to have had the name in the 8th century. The practice of
representing themselves as "the Senate" was revived by the aristocracy within the city of
Rome in the 8th century, though the institution itself was not revived.[92]
m. 8th century sources from Salzburg still reference that there was a social group in the city
called the Romani tributales but Romans at this time mostly merged with the wider tributales
(tributary peoples) distinction rather than being separate in Frankish documents. Throughout
most of former Gaul, the Roman elite which had lingered for centuries merged with the
Frankish elite and lost their previous distinct identity. Though "Romans" continued to be a
dominant identity in regional politics in southern Gaul for a while, the specific references to
some individuals as "Romans" or "descendants of Romans" indicates that their Roman
status was perhaps no longer being taken for granted and needed pointing out. The last
groups of Romani in the Frankish realm lingered for some time, especially in Salzburg and
Raetia, but mostly fade away in the early 9th century.[105]
n. For instance, in the 6th century writings of Gregory of Tours, Rome is not mentioned until
Saint Peter arrives there, and Gregory appears indifferent to Rome once having been the
capital of an empire.[79]
o. As with the other early Medieval changes to Roman identity, the origins of this change can
be traced to the 6th century. Cassiodorus, who served the Gothic kings, used 'Romans' to
describe Roman people across Italy, but Pope Gregory the Great, at the end of the 6th
century, uses 'Roman' almost exclusively for the people in the city. The Historia
Langobardorum, written by Paul the Deacon in the 8th century, postulates that the term civis
Romanus ("Roman citizen") is applied solely to someone who either lived in, or was born in,
the city of Rome and it could for instance be applied to the Archbishop of Ravenna,
Marinianus, only because he had originally been born in Rome. This indicates that the term
at some point ceased to generally refer to all the Latin-speaking subjects of the Lombard
kings and became restricted to the city itself.[107]
 p. Only in the sense of sharing continuity with the ancient emperors and governing the Roman
Empire. The Holy Roman emperors were not seen as "Romans" in any sense.[110]
q. As late as the 13th and 14th centuries, the writer Dante Alighieri wrote that the Romans
"stand out among all Italians for the ugliness of their manners and their outward
appearance".[113]
r. By the time of the Vandal Kingdom's fall, the Vandalic language was in sharp decline, if not
almost entirely extinct. There are records of bishops from the Vandal Kingdom pretending
not to be able to speak Latin to avoid debates with bishops from the eastern empire and the
other kingdoms, but such claims were doubted even by their contemporaries.[115]
s. The Arab historian Ibn Abd al-Hakam, who wrote of the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb,
described North Africa as home to three peoples: the Berbers, the Romans (Rūm) and the
Africans (Afāriq).[121]
t. For instance, Byzantine individuals from Italy almost never describe themselves as "Roman"
and Syriac sources almost always treat the Romans in third person.[123]
u. For instance, an inscription on a brick from Sirmium, inscribed during the Avar siege of the
city in 580–582, reads "Oh Lord, help the town and halt the Avar and protect the Romanía
and the scribe. Amen."[123]
v. There are early references to Romans as a gens, for instance the late antiquity works of
Priscian and Jordanes, but they are very rare.[125]
w. For much of its history, the populace of the Byzantine Empire firmly believed that the western
empire, and other territories, would eventually be reconquered. As late as the middle of the
12th-century, the Byzantine princess Anna Komnene wrote that if her father, emperor Alexios
I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118), "had not been hindered by unfavourable circumstances, he
would have rightfully restored Roman rule over the whole former Roman world, up to the
limits of the Atlantic Ocean in the west and India in the east".[128]
x. One of the earliest western references to the easterners as "Greeks" comes from Bishop
Avitus of Vienne who wrote, in the context of the Frankish king Clovis I's baptism; "Let
Greece, to be sure, rejoice in having an orthodox ruler, but she is no longer the only one to
deserve such a great gift".[130]
y. The 15th century Byzantine historian Doukas, for instance, refers to the Genoese general
Giovanni Giustiniani, who assisted the Byzantines at the fall of Constantinople, as a 'general
of the Romans'.[133]
z. In the writings of Doukas, the Greeks are a foreign people, separated from the present
Romans by both time and religious differences. Doukas also uses the terms in an insulting
manner for the anti-unionists active near the fall of Constantinople.[138]
aa. As an example, the chronicler Gaza Paisios Ligaridis wrote in the 17th century that "it is a
great comfort to us thrice-miserable Romans to hear that there shall come a resurrection, a
deliverance of our Genos". When the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 failed to lead to the
restoration of the empire, Kaisarios Dapontes wrote that "the empire of the Romans will
never be resurrected" and Athanasios Komninos-Ypsilantis wrote that "if therefore, in the
time appointed by the prophecies, the Romans have not been liberated, then it will be very
difficult for the resurrection of the Roman empire to take place".[146]
ab. Peter Charanis, who was born on the island of Lemnos in 1908 and later became a
professor of Byzantine history at Rutgers University, recounts that when the island was
taken from the Ottomans by Greece in 1912, Greek soldiers were sent to each village and
stationed themselves in the public squares. According to Charanis, some of the island
children ran to see what Greek soldiers looked like; ‘‘what are you looking at?’’ one of the
soldiers asked. ‘‘At Hellenes,’’ the children replied. ‘‘Are you not Hellenes yourselves?’’ the
soldier retorted. ‘‘No, we are Romans’’ the children replied.[156]
ac. One of the earliest records of the Romanians possibly being referred to as Romans is given
in the Nibelungenlied, a German epic poem written before 1200 in which a "Duke Ramunc
from the land of Vlachs" is mentioned. It has been argued that "Ramunc" was not the name
of the duke, but a collective name that highlighted his ethnicity. Other documents, especially
Byzantine or Hungarian ones, also attest the old Romanians as Romans or their
descendants.[164]

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14. Revell 2009, p. x. 49. Conant 2015, p. 159.
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72. Bileta 2016, p. 28.
73. Bileta 2016, pp. 29–30.
74. Pohl 2018, p. 16.
75. Sánchez-Ostiz 2018, p. 313.
76. Sánchez-Ostiz 2018, p. 320.
77. Hen 2018, pp. 61–62.
78. Hen 2018, p. 63.
79. Hen 2018, p. 64.
80. Hen 2018, p. 61.
81. Conant 2015, p. 157.
82. Conant 2015, p. 156.
83. Pohl 2014, p. 415.
84. Pohl 2018, p. 3.
85. Halsall 2018, p. 51.
86. Gillett 2002, pp. 118–119.
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88. Jones 1962, p. 126.
89. Mathisen 2012, pp. 105–107.
90. Halsall 2018, p. 52.
91. Pohl 2018, p. 14.
92. Pohl 2018, pp. 11–12.
93. Barnish 1988, p. 151.
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97. Pohl 2018, pp. 15–18, 38–39.
98. Sorrill 2012, pp. 35–36.
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100. Buchberger 2015, Conclusion.
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102. Halsall 2018, p. 48.
103. Pohl 2018, p. 39.
104. Sarti 2016, pp. 1055–1056.
105. Pohl 2018, pp. 15–16, 38–39.
106. Pohl 2018, p. 20.
107. Pohl 2018, p. 10.
108. Delogu 2018, p. 157.
109. Pohl 2018, p. 11.
110. Granier 2018, p. 225.
111. Granier 2018, pp. 223–225.
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114. Conant 2015, p. 164.
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116. Parker 2018, p. 5.
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125. Pohl 2018, pp. 7–8.
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128. Stouraitis 2014, p. 188.
129. Stouraitis 2017, p. 74.
130. Pohl 2018, p. 25.
131. Cameron 2009, p. 7.
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133. Smarnakis 2015, p. 221.
134. Stouraitis 2017, p. 80.
135. Stouraitis 2017, p. 85.
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148. World Population Review.
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