The first evidence we have of purple or red shoes used for kings is more than 3000 years old.
Etruscans (an ancient Italian population) used red shoes for their kings[1], albeit its uncertain whether they could be purple which is more likely. This habit then moved to the roman kings and later the Roman emperors.
It is uncertain when it went from purple to red, but it's likely a practical reason: when going outside you don't wear slippers but leather boots, which were very easy to get in a red color, purple? Not really. You can easily find purple used anywhere in clothing, but not shoes.
And who else claims (or claimed) to be the heir of the Roman empire other than the Pope?
The emperor of byzanthium [2], notice how he's the only one depicted with red/purple shoes.
The German emperor [3].
The Tsars [4] (Tsar word comes from Caesar, same as Kaiser) too claimed the inheritance of the Byzantine (and thus Roman) empires after the Ottomans took the city.
The emperor of "Byzantium" literally was the emperor of the Roman empire; it was not merely a claim like in the other cases but an administrative and historical fact. It is more accurate to say that "the Byzantine Empire" not being the actual Roman empire is merely a modern claim.
Yes and no as the emperor Constantine literally moved the capital from Rome to Costantinople and Constantinople was the capital of both empires for another few centuries till the death of Giustiniano.
> The emperor of "Byzantium" literally was the emperor of the Roman empire; it was not merely a claim like in the other cases but an administrative and historical fact.
Not in any useful sense.
Cyrus the Great was literally the King of Sumer and Akkad. Did he know where Akkad was?
Tsai Ing-wen is literally the President of China. You might object that China doesn't even have a president, but the administrative and historical facts are against you.
If the United States were invaded on the east coast, and the invaders were stopped at the Mississippi, and the US then carried on with its capital in Sacramento for the next 1000 years, do you think the executive would no longer be called the President of the United States just because the US lost some of the states? (Credit to Dan Carlin for that little thought experiment.)
The Byzantines called themselves Roman. They thought of themselves as Roman. To them, the constitution of their political order dated to 753 BC with the founding of Rome, even after they lost Rome. It wasn't just a label. For example, Latin remained is use in law in the empire, many hundreds of years after they lost the west. Emperor Heraclius around 610 AD would undertake a project to start translating all the old Latin laws into Greek (even though he may have spoke Latin himself natively). If nothing else, the Roman self-identity is important for understanding how they saw themselves in their own historiography.
> them, the constitution of their political order dated to 753 BC with the founding of Rome, even after they lost Rome.
I’m not sure they were particularly bothered by that. The late Roman/Byzantine empires was over everything the universal “Christian Empire” and being a true Orthodox-Catholic Christian basically became synonymous to being Roman the pagan past prior to Constantine was mostly ancient history by the middle ages and had limited if any influence on their self-identity.
So you're fully on board with the idea that Tsai Ing-wen is the President of China, and anyone who thinks they see some important distinctions is just making a weird mistake?
Neither your first paragraph nor your second one manages to distinguish modern China from ancient Rome.
Calling yourself Roman won't make you Roman any more than calling yourself Australian will make you Australian.
If the ROC still controlled half of mainland China and those regions were governed in pretty much the same way as before the civil war and the rest of China was broken up into tiny little kingdoms that didn't last very long then yeah, it would make sense to think of them as China.
Constantinople was the center of the empire long before Italy and Rome were lost (and the Byzantine empire controlled the city of Rome itself until the 750s).
It’s a bit like saying that Angles/English stopped being “English” after they moved from northern Germany/Denmark to the modern territory of Britain.
At least for several centuries the “Byzantine” Empire was the Roman Empire and was undoubtedly recognized as such both in the west and east.
Not even Tsai Ing-wen herself would claim that. Your rhetoric is absurd, there are surely better tactics if you wish to engage in rhetorical argument. Today's ROC has a different view than their predecessors relating to claims on Chinese mainland.
She's publicly refused to agree that Taiwan is part of China and also rejected the one country, two systems model proposed by the PRC. Instead, she said that "Republic of China, Taiwan" already is an independent country[0] and that Beijing must "face reality". This reality that she herself has accepted is that Taiwan and China are two different countries and they each hold no valid claims over the other.
> “We don’t have a need to declare ourselves an independent state,” Tsai told the BBC. “We are an independent country already and we call ourselves the Republic of China, Taiwan. We are a successful democracy … We deserve respect from China,” she said. “We have a separate identity and we’re a country of our own.”
> Beijing has refused to deal directly with Tsai on the grounds that she has not, like her predecessor, accepted the so-called 1992 consensus which says that Taiwan and China are part of “one China”. That vague agreement leaves it up to each side to interpret the definition of “one China”.
Tsai Ing-Wen leads her party further along the overton window that ROC is "just Taiwan, not the mainland", but it is widely accepted among experts that ROC doctrine dropped the pretense of ever retaking the mainland, for all practical endeavors, quite some time ago.[1] This is viewed to have occurred through the period when Taiwan was transitioning from an autocratic government (justified by it's "war footing") to an open, democratic government (facilitated by "war" no longer being viewed to be necessary or desired, merely "defense" instead).
So to directly address your verbiage:
> It's her formal title right now.
Her formal title is "president of the Republic of China, Taiwan". In her own words, "the Republic of China" is just Taiwan, not the mainland.
To steel-man your argument, it is true that the ROC party has not yet released any statement dropping their old claims to the mainland. But even that valid, stronger argument falls when confronted with the fact that the ROC hasn't re-asserted those claims in a very long time, and the leader of the ROC frequently makes statements which are in direct contradiction to those old claims.
Also please read HN's commenting guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. Your comment would be interpreted as unhelpfully inflammatory by many readers. I admit that mine above could have benefited from similar proactive discretion on my part.
However, I stand by my assertion that you're primarily engaging in rhetorical argument, using mostly logical fallacies to "win", rather than engaging in actual intellectual debate. I'd honestly argue that pretty much every sentence you've typed on the topic so far has been merely one rhetorical technique followed by another. The techniques of "rhetoric" that you've used include:
- Red Herring (overall): Introducing Tsai Ing-Wen and the modern political status of Taiwan diverts the conversation from the historical discussion about the Roman and Byzantine empires.
- Straw Man (severe): "So you're fully on board with the idea that Tsai Ing-wen is the President of China"
- Poisoning the Well (severe): "anyone who thinks they see some important distinctions is just making a weird mistake?"
- Appeal to ridicule (severe): "Are you kidding?"
- Misleading Vividness or Appeal to Emotion (severe): "shouldn't we at least know the facts?" suggests that anyone not agreeing with your presentation of "facts" is either ignorant or willfully misleading, thereby emotionally charging the argument to sway the listener without providing substantive evidence for your position.
- Appeal to authority (major): "It's her formal title right now. She can't call herself anything else!" This is appealing to the authority of formal titles and official designations, and falsely removing the agency of the person herself. As well as implying a factual mis-statement of the official title. The implication is that her title is "President of the Republic of China" but her actual title is "President of the Republic of China (Taiwan)"[2]
- Begging the Question (major): "She can't call herself anything else," assumes that Tsai Ing-Wen is bound to her title without addressing why that must necessarily be the case beyond asserting some formalistic requirement. This begs the question by assuming the point under debate (that her title defines her political reality completely) is already proven. Notwithstanding, again, that the implied title is factually incorrect in the first place.
- False Analogy (minor, debatable): comparing the historical administrative status of the Byzantine Empire as the Roman Empire to modern claims of national identity.
- Red Herring (minor, debatable): "Did he know where Akkad was?" introduces an irrelevant issue (Cyrus's geographical knowledge of Akkad) to the discussion of legitimate rule and continuity of empires.
- False Dilemma (minor, debatable): "She can't call herself anything else," suggests a false dilemma that Tsai Ing-Wen has only two choices: to fully adhere to the (imagined) restrictions of her (factually incorrect) formal title or to entirely abdicate it.
> Her formal title is "president of the Republic of China, Taiwan". In her own words, "the Republic of China" is just Taiwan, not the mainland.
There are several problems here:
1. "Taiwan" does not appear anywhere in her title.
2. The English title "President of the Republic of China" specifies explicitly that her country is called "China".
3. Her actual title, 中華民國總統, does the same thing, only without also calling the country a "republic". This would translate directly as "President of the People's State of China", where 中華 is a fancier word for China than the plainer 中國. It's the same one, by the way, used in the name of the PRC, 中华 [China] 人民 [People] 共和国 [Republic]. This should make plain what was already plain from the English formal names, that Taiwan and China overtly claim to be the same country. This also happens to be an administrative fact known as the One China Policy.
I have to stand by my appeal to you to know the facts before you take a position on what they are.
I also hope you've noticed that your objections to my point immediately imply that there is no valid reason to claim that the Byzantine Empire is the same thing as the Roman Empire, which of course is my point. Every argument marshaled upthread in support of this claim applies in full to Taiwan. They tend to be stronger for Taiwan, actually, given the fact that Taiwan was invaded and occupied by a bunch of foreign Chinese, who persist there, operate the government, and have successfully imposed their own foreign language, whereas the Byzantine Empire was populated by the same people who were there before the Romans took control, speaking the same language they spoke before the Romans took control.
If you think that this argument is nevertheless valid for the Byzantines but invalid for Taiwan, you need to state a difference between the two cases. Otherwise, "are you kidding?" is really the only possible response. Similarly when your argument consists of bare lies. Tsai Ing-wen clearly wishes that her title were not "President of China". She could make the attempt to change what it is, but she hasn't.
> "Did he know where Akkad was?" introduces an irrelevant issue (Cyrus's geographical knowledge of Akkad) to the discussion of legitimate rule and continuity of empires.
Think about the possible reasons why the "King of Akkad" might not know where Akkad is.
To be pedantic the Holy Roman Emperors claimed that title before Constantinople fell to Mehmed, which makes the claim even less legitimate.
The Byzantine emperors carried on many Roman traditions, including wearing purple. The imperial birth chambers were decorated in purple (actually a purple stone), giving rise to the term “born in the purple” to describe their legitimate heirs, these days used to describe any old toff.
To be fair there was nothing unusual from the Roman perspective about there being 2 emperors. Even during the Byzantine period it was not particularly uncommon for heirs to be crowned as “co-emperors”. Despite effectively becoming a monarchy the empire retained some “republican” traits with the emperor reigning with the consent of God and the people of Rome.
I'm not sure that follows. Who specifically "inherited" the Right to Rule from Roman Empire was always more of a political claim. The concept of "legitimacy" in this regard is dubious. That said, the original Northwest European territory of the Merovingians-Carolingians had a strong political connection to Roman Imperial Rulership. Not to say that this necessarily translated to "legitimate inheritance", but arguably no territory outside of Byzantium had a stronger historical political claim.
In principal I agree, but Costantinople had a sounder claim.
In 298 the emperor Diocleziano split the empire in two different administrative parts, the western one, culturally latin, and the eastern one, culturally greek.
The emperor Costantine I moved the capital from Rome to Costantinople in the 320s, the city was called also New Rome and the greek inhabitants of the eastern empire called themselves "Romei", and the balkans have been called then Rumelia a term that spread even further under the Ottomans. Even today many turks use the term "Rumeli" for balkan people (as Balkans is a term introduced two centuries ago by a german geographer).
By the end of the 4th century the split was basically complete and the latest Latin-born emperor of Byzanthium was Giustiano in the 7th century.
I think that the history of the Eastern Roman Empire has enough "de jure" claims for the inheritance.
This also connects to Russia.
By the fall of Costantinople in 1453 no country claimed to inherit the throne of the eastern roman empire but Russia. The Tsar Ivan III married the last granddaughter of the last emperor (Constantine III) thus uniting the bloodlines. The crown of the byzanthine empire was then given to the Tsars as it was the last country in Europe of greek-orthodox descendance (visible still today, both in religion, culture and language) thus claiming to inherit the throne of the roman emperors more than a thousand years after.
I do absolutely agree with you about the legitimacy, I don't think there's necessarily any nor I think it's relevant, but I find this extremely interesting nonetheless.
There was bo bloodline though. Until quite late (much to its detriment) the empire maintained some of its original “republican” character and the emperors derived their legitimacy from the will of God and the people rather than inherited it (which resulted in endless civil wars). Unlike in Europe in the medieval and the succeeding periods your bloodline/dynasty was secondary to your ability to take and hold power effectively making emperors closer to modern dictators than kings in some ways.
This is one of many ways the Russian claim to be the "Third Rome" is and was bullshit. The Eastern Roman Empire ended in 1453 with the fall of Constantinople, and it was the last polity with a credible claim to the continuation of the Roman Empire of old.
> and the latest Latin-born emperor of Byzant[]ium was Giust[in]iano in the 7th century.
This is a surreal approach to the names of historical figures. Diocleziano and Giustiniano are not their names in English, the language you're speaking, nor are they the actual names of the people. "Costantine" appears to be a hybrid of the modern Italian name Costantino with the English name Constantine, and analogously for "Costantinople".
> the latest Latin-born emperor of Byzanthium
> The crown of the byzanthine empire
There is no H in Byzantium, the Greek original uses a tau and not a theta, and the modern Italian noun and adjective are bisanzio and bizantino. I really can't figure out where you're getting this spelling.
> and the greek inhabitants of the eastern empire called themselves "Romei"
That isn't Greek; surely they called themselves rhomaioi?
What's up with the Italian imperialism from "epolanski"?
I appreciate the history. If we want to discuss actual "inheritance" in a historical sense of the Classical civ and initial expanded civ originated in the Republic, rather than some type of lineal-political claim, than where the decentralized or otherwise Parliamentarian system of government again appears is the heir. Certainly, the HRE is the start of that in Europe. Prior, Frankish-Norman invader Kings sewed its seed in Britain. Today, its largest and historically most powerful manifestation is in the United States.
It's a bit weird to write that the Romans of Constantinople "claimed" to be the "heirs" of the empire; as far as they were concerned they simply were Romans and their empire was obviously the same empire as Augustus', albeit with a change of capital city and so on. And given that they were Romans and the Emperor of Rome did become the Emperor of Constantinople, you have to do some work to argue against them.
In particular, very unsurprising that they'd share continue to like the same colours of shoes.
It's not hard at all to refute the Byzantines' claims to being the Roman empire. If your empire doesn't include Rome, it cannot be the Roman empire. Similarly, Taiwan is not China even though they are the continuation of the old Chinese government.
When the bizantine re-took part of Italy, the local germanic tribes who had occupied Italy identified them as Romans, which is why to this day there's a geographical region called "Romagna" a few hundred kilometers from the city of Rome.
That's silly. The Roman empire could not have existed at all, delusional people claimed roman citizenship but lived far beyond the city limits. You can't be a citizen of a place you've never been, so the whole thing is just dumb and a myth.
I can't believe you buy into this absurd nonsense that there could even be a Roman Empire without a megalopolis covering much of Europe, North Africa and the Levant.
> It is uncertain when it went from purple to red, but it's likely a practical reason: when going outside you don't wear slippers but leather boots, which were very easy to get in a red color, purple? Not really. You can easily find purple used anywhere in clothing, but not shoes.
Wasn't the point of regal colours that they were scarce/expensive?
Scarse is good, for regal, but they do have to actually exist. Were there dyes that would work on leather at that time and yield the desired color and not wash off in 3 seconds and look like crap?
Byzantium = Eastern roman empire. They referred to themselves as Roman and in every way were Roman. Funny that we bifurcated the empire nomenclature for our own classification.
The reason people continue to refer to "Byzantium" (this was not the name they used to themselves) is that the Western European countries also made the claim to be the heirs of the Roman Empire. So they couldn't accept the fact that "Byzantium" was the real Roman Empire (at least what remained of it).
The same dye produces a wide range of shades between purple and red depending on how the cloth is treated/the amount used/the aging of the piece. A shift in color could very much be a gradual shift over time as styles/process change.
The first evidence we have of purple or red shoes used for kings is more than 3000 years old.
Etruscans (an ancient Italian population) used red shoes for their kings[1], albeit its uncertain whether they could be purple which is more likely. This habit then moved to the roman kings and later the Roman emperors.
It is uncertain when it went from purple to red, but it's likely a practical reason: when going outside you don't wear slippers but leather boots, which were very easy to get in a red color, purple? Not really. You can easily find purple used anywhere in clothing, but not shoes.
And who else claims (or claimed) to be the heir of the Roman empire other than the Pope?
The emperor of byzanthium [2], notice how he's the only one depicted with red/purple shoes.
The German emperor [3].
The Tsars [4] (Tsar word comes from Caesar, same as Kaiser) too claimed the inheritance of the Byzantine (and thus Roman) empires after the Ottomans took the city.
[1] https://www.pope2you.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Etruscan...
[2] https://www.thoughtco.com/thmb/QytBnfnDoP8aDE-rm3eYGbTYCpk=/...
[3] https://www.ancient-origins.net/sites/default/files/field/im...
[4] https://www.mediastorehouse.com.au/p/731/tsar-boot-antiquiti...