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Lex AI Anthony Kaldelis

3:58:46 recording · EN · 2 speakers

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Brief overview

The Byzantine Empire never existed: it was the Roman state, continuing unbroken for over 2,200 years.

  1. Byzantium is a label invented by outsidersThe sources are clear the state called itself Roman; the burden of proof lies with those who deny it.
  2. Insecurity, not ideals, kept emperors responsiveWith no right to the throne and 46% of emperors violently removed, pleasing subjects was self-preservation.
  3. Universal citizenship that actually had teethAfter 212 provincials could reach the Senate and the throne itself, and within a generation they did.
Executive Summary AI
  • Anthony Kaldelis argues the Eastern Roman Empire was the direct continuation of the ancient Roman Empire, whose subjects were Roman citizens and called themselves Romans to the end, while Western Europeans called it the empire of the Greeks for a thousand years before switching to Byzantine for political reasons.9:43
  • He identifies only three moments when large territory was lost swiftly, the Arab conquests of the 630s, the Seljuk-Turk conquest of Asia Minor in the 1070s and the Fourth Crusade of 1204, with the rest of the history being slow, steady consolidation and growth.17:28
  • The emperors broadcast a consistent persona through laws, rhetoric and answers to petitions: responsive, accountable, proactive and sleepless, with Justinian publicly known as the sleepless emperor, and Kaldelis finds they were generally sincere about it.34:57
  • The reason is that nobody had a right to the throne, so in the thousand years he studies there were something like 120 civil wars and roughly 46% of the emperors of Constantinople were overthrown by violence, making goodwill the emperor's best defence.43:40
  • Caracalla's edict of 212, the Constitutio Antoniniana, extended citizenship to everybody and was meant seriously, so that within a generation the emperors and the most powerful officials all came from the provinces.58:49
Key Quote
“It's almost a form of cognitive dissonance, right?”
— Anthony Kaldelis9:33
Key Quote
“Something like 46% of the emperors of Constantinople are overthrown through violence.”
— Anthony Kaldelis43:40
Key Quote
“We have instead an ongoing referendum.”
— Anthony Kaldelis46:52