Episode 277 - The New Roman Empire with Anthony Kaldellis. Part 1 - Government

Professor Kaldellis' new history of Byzantium is out now in the USA and on Kindle everywhere. He has kindly agreed to talk to us about it across 4 episodes!
In this first conversation we discuss the new Roman government that Constantine established in 330AD. What was the 'personality' of government? How did it achieve legitimacy in the eyes of the people? Was it really a Republican Monarchy?
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[@zzhanz6912]

This interview just made me love Eastern Roman Empire so much more.

[@alexrediger2099]

Please connect this to Michael Hudson's "And Forgive Them Their Debts" and "The Collapse of Antiquity". He points to Byzantium as breaking the tradition of Rome and taking on rather the more ancient Mesopotamian tradition of the ruler protecting the people and cancelling debt-- in order to maintain rule and keep private wealth (often through government officials) from taking political power through people's debt.

[@mydogsbutler]

Kaldellis is an eloquent writer and speaker but his overarching thesis that eastern Romans were a Roman "ethnic" group is bonkers. His definition of "ethnic" is leftist woke pseudo-scientific misuse of the term ethnic which has unfortunablely been co-opted by many modernists in the humanities. It's devoid of actual heritage connotation. It's similar to how woke sorts are redefining gender to be free of biology. The eastern Roman empire if anything decidedly discouraged ethnic identities in lew of Christian identity. An eastern Roman could be of different ethnic backgrounds albeit they claimed to be Romans. It was somewhat like British identity; Although not a perfect analogy It was case by case basis determining what the actual ethnic background of a particular Roman.

[@allahallah4711]