By Justinian's time, orthodox Christian/church ethics and expectations were deeply ingrained into daily life, but ethics and even laws around sexuality and murder seem to be inconsistent--so how did people see this inconsistency?
For example, prostitution was legal and regulated (with what appears to be some protections provided for the prostitutes themselves) and barmaids apparently could not be prosecuted for adultery because it was assumed they were prostitutes, but I believe adultery was a crime punishable by death. Was prostitution legal assuming one wasn't married, or was the crime of adultery only applied to married women? But more important, how was prostitution seen by everyday Romans during this time? Augustine wrote that prostitutes were necessary to keep society from falling into chaos, so was it looked down upon and simply tolerated by the masses? If this is the case, what did people think of bath houses that were home to prostitution and the concept of courtesans? Was going to them something to hide, or was it seen as a minor vice like smoking is today? Regarding Theodora, while it was scandalous that the Empress was a former prostitute (because she came from a lowly status), did anyone think twice about Justinian frequenting the brothel in the first place?
Regarding murder and war, early church writings are pretty clear on the immorality of taking life, so how did the Empire and people justify killings outside of the just war theory? I seem to recall that Justinian justified the reconquest of North Africa and Italy on various pretenses, so the idea of conquering for conquering sake seems to have been taboo. But political murder seems to have been rampant. Two examples: Justinian likely killed Vitalian to clear a rival to the throne, and his general Belisarius apparently murdered 30,000 rioters/protesters during the Nika riots, many of whom were unarmed and caught by surprise. While these could obviously be justified politically, how would Justinian and Belisarius likely justify these deeds to themselves? Assuming they were earnestly religious.
R5: Just finished a game as England > GB > Roman Empire.
At first I wanted to do the Anglophile achievement, but I somehow managed to get unions on Austria, Hungary, and Castile so this seemed better lol. I didn't do any colonizing even though I ended up owning A lot of the new world and Australia, that was all Castile and Mamluks when I annexed them.
Drat, I should have been more specific: The Western* Roman Empire.
I know this is a very long period of time so it probably varied. Did people in the Byzantine Empire call Constantinople Rome? Did other states refer to Byzantium as the Roman empire? What did the catholic church think? When the crusades were called were they considered to be helping the Roman empire?
I was raised as an American Protestant, and as many of you know, we historically had a negative perspective of intertwining church and state because of the Catholic persecutions and wars in Europe and then later the church of England's control in many of the colonies. I'm currently exploring Eastern Orthodoxy and was curious about your perspective about the relationship between church and state
One of my biggest gripes with the Roman Catholic Church is how the Papacy became so power-hungry over time and seemed so focused on temporal power, material wealth, and imposing its strength on non-Christians and Protestants
Obviously, Orthodoxy has recently suffered at the hands of Muslim governments and atheist regimes like the USSR, so the orthodox have not been in a position of power to perform such acts. But I often wonder: if the orthodox were still in control of the East like during the empire, would they have been doing the same kind of persecutions as the Latins? My guess? Probably. Or maybe it was more likely to occur in the West with a unique supreme leader like the Pope which is absent in orthodoxy
What was the relationship of the Orthodox Church to the state during the Byzantine age? What is the future relationship of orthodoxy with the state as the Russian patriarch seems to be uniting with Putin and the Russian state? To some extent, I understand the desire to be on the good side of the government given the recent history of the Russian state wiping out the orthodox faith through persecution, but on the other hand, cozying up to governments makes me uncomfortable due to the history of abuse by religious authorities when temporal power is available to them
The early church never had political power and suffered at the hands of authorities, but as the Christian religion became the state religion, Christians did turn to persecution to wipe out competing religions. I understand that we are to combat false religions but it seems un-Christian to violently suppress other religions like the Roman Empire did
Should the church and state be involved with one another or should the church seek a separate role?
Thanks
After the 8th century the Roman Empire did not hold the city of Rome. Did people acknowledge this fact at the time? Were there ever any talks about renaming the state?
like Austria or Prussia during the German Confederation, all I can guess right now is that the outside territory was more or less treated like colonial possessions but I need some clarifications.
Thank you lot for the answers, this topic has bothered me for the longest time.
I hope this is clear — essentially I'd like to know if similar concepts, discourse and sentiments today around U.S. American / broadly Western imperialism existed in the Roman Empire. Particularly given today is Indigenous People's Day in the U.S. and perhaps elsewhere, I'm looking for historical parallels.
I'd love to learn about what the native people of the Iberian Peninsula or Syria or the British Isles thought of their Roman rulers, and what native Romans knew and thought about their empire and its conquests.
It's a question that I imagine has a complex answer. Thanks for y'all's help.
Were the State's formally reconized by the HRE? If so, did the two consider each other rivals, allies, or was the Empire too busy collapsing/America too isolationist at the time?
