Ottoman Caesars

Originally posted by ihsan They were adressing them as Greek to show them "out of Christianity".  Remember Orthodox - Catholic rivalery. The term Greek was a symbol of being pagan. It was Karl the Great who for the first time called the (Eastern) Roman Emperor as the "Greek Emperor". And the Catholic-Orthodox division wasn't around in the early 9th century

Otranto was occupied by the turkish forces with a surprise. The defenders fought heroicly but they were unable to hinder the turks from occupying the castle. Turks were led by Gedik Ahmet Paşa, a remarkable and diciplined commander. Their goal was to take a fort and make their operations from that base. But the news of the sultans death arrived and Gedik Ahmed Paşa had to cancel the operation because of CEM and BAYAZIDS throne claims. After a couple of years he was dead in this fight. The ottomans were in a civil war and they couldnt give any attention to italy. Totally 1500 ottoman soldiers were garrisoned in otranto. And my friends, for 1,5 year they werent even attacked by a christian army. Otranto was taken by Ferrante with the help of hungarian mercenaries. After the capture the turks fought for Ferrante.

Originally posted by kurt Originally posted by Imperatore Dario I Originally posted by Catt It would have helped Mehmet a little if he had taken Rome itself. I would doubt it. The pope would call for a crusade to drive the Turks out, calling them invaders who illegally seized Rome, etc, etc.   He did. But noone answered after what happened to the last crusading army who fought against the Ottomans (battle of Varna, 1444).   Originally posted by Tyranos The Turks at the time were seeking to imitate the glory of Rome and saw themselves its rightful heirs to the complete Roman Empire, after taking of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Turks were devastated on the shores of Southern Italy, they met fanatical and determined resistance.     Actually they captured and occupied the city of Otranto, and were planning to advance up the Italian peninsula and conquer the whole thing. The pope, after having his calls for a crusade were ignored, even fled Rome. After the Sultan died a year later, however, the plan for both the capture of Italy and the island of Rhodes disintegrated.     If someone could could conform what I'm writing, that would be great, otherwise the two profoundly eurocentric and in my opinion inaccurate quotes above would be accepted as fact.

Originally posted by Tyranos The Turks at the time were seeking to imitate the glory of Rome and saw themselves its rightful heirs to the complete Roman Empire, after taking of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Turks were devastated on the shores of Southern Italy, they met fanatical and determined resistance.   The Western Empire disolved after Romulus Augustulus, but the Pope remained the central figure with retaining still the mainly Romaized Germanic chieftains under his power by dangling the imperial Crown before their very eyes. Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire were frauds with papal support, the Ottomans were another group of frauds. But the process of naming themselves Caesar and seeing themselves as Romans, didnt end in the Middle Ages or such..continued on into modern times, under the titles of Kaiser and Czar ect.

Edited by Tyranos - 07-Oct-2007 at 00:22

The Ottomans considered themselves many things, one of which was Kayser-i Rum. Actually that's one of the reasons why the Ottomans conquered Constantinople: Being Caesar of Rome. 

They were adressing them as Greek to show them "out of Christianity".  Remember Orthodox - Catholic rivalery. The term Greek was a symbol of being pagan.

It was Karl the Great who for the first time called the (Eastern) Roman Emperor as the "Greek Emperor". And the Catholic-Orthodox division wasn't around in the early 9th century

Originally posted by Catt It would have helped Mehmet a little if he had taken Rome itself.

Yes this is an other possibility.

Originally posted by Qnzkid711 Yea but you also have to realize that while Constantinople knew themselves as Roman, there were not regarded as such. The western world knew them as the Greek Empire and their leader was not a Roman Emperor to them, but a Greek Emperor. So techically the whole idea of the ROman Empire , to the west, had ended long ago. It s even said on some occassion that Justinian was the last Roman Emperor.

It is not important that western world knew them as Romans.

The fact that they were the Romans of east Rome. Western world; Holy Roma-German Empire were claiming that they were representing the Rome. In fact in Germany there were never be a Roman rule. This was a power struggle.

They were adressing them as Greek to show them "out of Christianity".  Remember Orthodox - Catholic rivalery. The term Greek was a symbol of being pagan.

In fact Mehmet the Conqeror saw him as the descendants of Trojans. He said that "by taking Constantinople we took the revenge of Troia". In those days even in Europe many people were thinking that Turks were the descendants of Trojans.

It may be it is because Romans were claiming the same think and Rome had been established by Trojans. So that they may have some sort of emphaty with Mehmet the Conqueror.    

 The phrase "Byzantine Empire" was coined and popularized by French scholars such as Montesquieu, an influential figure of eighteenth century intellectual life.. He was the same author whose seminal volume The Spirit Of The Laws did much to inspire the Founding Fathers of the United States in their writing of the American Constitution. Like other thinkers of his time, Montesquieu revered the ancient Greeks and Romans with immoderate enthusiasm as masters of politics and culture to be emulated. Following a Western European tradition that extended back to the early Middle Ages, Montesquieu regarded the Empire at Constantinople as corrupt and decadent. Although he wrote a long history of the Empire at Constantinople, Montesquieu could not bring himself to refer to the Empire at Constantinople with the noble names of "Greek" or "Roman." From the obsolete name "Byzantium," Montesquieu used the word "Byzantine." The word "Byzantine" denoted the Empire and connoted its supposed characteristics: dishonesty, dissimulation and decadence. The English scholar Edward Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire treated the Empire after the sixth century as an epic of unrelieved degradation and corruption.

From the webpage www.romanity.org

The people who lived in the "Byzantine Empire" never knew nor used the word "Byzantine." They know themselves to be Romans, nothing more and absolutely nothing less. By transferring the Imperial capital from Rome on the Tiber to the New Rome on Bosphorus, dubbed Constantinople, the Emperor Constantine I had transferred the actual identity of Rome to the new location. Long before Constantine I, the idea of "Rome" had become dissociated from the Eternal City on the Tiber. For a Roman meant a Roman citizen, whereever he lived. Before the Imperial period, in 89 BC, a Roman law had granted Roman citizenship to people throughout Italy. Afterwards, citizenship became extended to an increasing number of people in different parts of the Empire. In 212, Emperor Caracalla declared all free persons in the Empire to be Roman citizens, entitled to call themselves Roman, not merely subject to the Romans. Within a few decades, people begin to refer to the entire Empire less often [in Latin] as "Imperium Romanorum" [Domain of the Romans] and more often as "Romania" [Romanland]

Is this true?