19th century Historian John Bagnell Bury was ahead of his time regarding Roman identity
In a sea of scholars increasingly adopting the label "Byzantine" to describe the eastern Roman empire in the later 19th century, Irish historian John B. Bury (1861-1927) stood out as perhaps the earliest objector to the term.
In his own studies, he avoided imposing modern racial, cultural and geostrategic biases upon later Roman history and simply respected the evidence presented in the primary sources. Thus he side-stepped the western obsession over denying the Romanness of the eastern empire. He was thus far superior to his contemporaries and his works hold up better than any of those produced by them.
There is no period of history which has been so much obscured by incorrect and misleading titles as the period of the later Roman Empire... The import of that period is so constantly misunderstood and its character misrepresented... The old Roman empire did no cease to exist until the year 1453... This essential fact is obscured as far as the language is able to obscure it by applying the name "Byzantine" or the name "Greek" to the Empire in its later stages... No "Byzantine Empire" even began to exist; the Roman Empire did not come to an end until 1453"
- A History of the Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to Irene (395 AD to 800 AD), 2 vols. 1:v-viii
Unfortunately, Bury failed to persuade his peers and the long standing belief that Byzantium was anything but Roman prevailed up until relatively recent times.
Posted Aug 29, 2026, 3:09 AM UTC