arnold_toynbee
Arnold Toynbee consistently used the term “East Roman” rather than either “Roman” or “Byzantine.” To him, the Roman Empire was a continuation of Greek / Hellenistic civilization, a point of view shared by the poet Horace who in the first century BC famously wrote that “captive Greece took captive her savage conqueror.” Toynbee divides East and West Roman civilizations as early as the late republic and early principiate, with the East Roman being Hellenistic and the West Roman more in keeping with the traditional image of marching legions and gladiators that in time disappeared as the west evolved. Thus he refers to an East Roman culture well before Constantine I divided the administration. Such an East Roman terminology covering an era since before the birth of Christ till the fall of Constantinople may finally satisfy those who feud over whether the later Empire should be called Byzantine or Roman. It was West Roman legions which conquered the world but East Roman cavalry which maintained the empire throughout the middle ages.

Having made that point I have no desire nor any will to continue the unproductive argument of Byzantine vs Roman terminology. To say Roman to anyone not already immersed in East Roman history and culture is to confuse him only to make a point. In art it would actually be a distortion to speak of Byzantine as medieval Roman. On the other hand, politically the later emperors did rule in an unbroken succession from Caesar Augustus and their laws survived their individual deaths unless canceled by a successor.

Sometimes there is no single “right” way to see something. It was what it was and to each his own. End discussion.