efe wrote:romans, byzintines ( i actually dont want to call them greeks) founded the city yes. but obviously they discovered the beautiful land and took it. it wasnt given to them automatically.
many greek professors today even claim that byzintines werent greeks we know today. they were a mix of local anatolians. (todays Armenians, assyrians, kurds, greeks, etc) they were even writing in latin before they made the official language greek.
efe, the dominant culture and language was Greek, around 85% of the populace were Greek in the Byzantine Empire. But they considered themselves Romans (but past 9th century the word 'hellene' started to become used more and more often), we cannot speak of it being 'Greek' in comparison to today because Nation States are a modern invention, but the Byzantine Empire was the forerunner of the Modern Hellenic Republic, why do you think Historians call it "The Empire that became a Nation."? For all intesive purposes, by around the mid 8th century, the Empire had become totally hellenized, and even before the Latin-Greek Schism of East and West the East was still an effectively Greek Run Autonomous Empire. You have to understand that in the earlier times of say, 2nd century BC, there was a fusion between Greek and Roman ideas, that is why Civilization at that time was referred to as 'Greco-Roman', because they effectively molded into one, after all, was it not Horace who said that "Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit" (Captive Greece conquered the conquerer).
When the divison (schism) happened though, the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) effectively began to follow it's own destiny, and the 2 cultures of Latin and Greek started to divide again, therefore, although Rome still hadf many influences (Constantinopoli as 'Nova Roma') they were largely ceremonial (like title of Augustus), but even then in mid 7th Century Heraclius replaced the Latin Titles with Greek Ones, and one of the best examples of the Empires dominant 'Greekness' was when Heraclius was fighting great battles with the Persians, he emphasized an entirely Greek struggle against Persia.
A lot of stupid races try and lay claim to Byzantium, like the Albanians for example (stealing the two headed eagle and claiming Justinian was Albanian ((He was the last Latin Emperor))), but the truth is, is that very few minorities in the Byzantine Empire contributed very much towards it, if you read some of the sources, such as diaries by minorities in Byzantine Army, they will talk a lot about how they are releagetd to second class status in Army, I read one by an Bulgar after the reign of Vasillis II talking about all the friction between a couple of Bulgars and himself in the regiment and the Greeks. But even then he said they recognized the greater threat (Muslims).
Also Efe, if you want I can recommend some good books on Byzantine Empire. Also, the city was not founded in Byzantine Times, but in Athenian times when Athenians colonized Minor Asia.
