LogFAQs > #949459790

FatalAccident posted...

wasn't that the whole state rather than just the city?

It was both.

The city was founded as a Greek city called Byzantium, then Constantine renamed it after himself after he made it the eastern capital of the Roman Empire. Then the Turks mostly called it something like Kostantiniyye (not sure of the spelling) for years after conquering it, before they eventually officially changed the name to Istanbul.

The Byzantines themselves just referred to their empire as "The Roman Empire" - because from their perspective, they were the direct inheritors of the original empire and it never "fell". At most, they might acknowledge the distinction and refer to themselves as "The Eastern Roman Empire" instead.

But western Europeans tended to be salty about that sort of thing and refused to accept that the Roman Empire still "stood" once Rome itself fell, so they started calling it the Byzantine Empire (named after Byzantium, because "The Constantinian Empire" probably seemed more awkward) or occasionally "The Greek Empire" (because they viewed the Byzantines as being far more Greek than Roman in outlook and heritage).

Stuff like that is part of why the Byzantines were annoyed when Charlemagne was declared Holy Roman Emperor (because in their view he had no right to the title and the Pope had no authority to bestow it), and why they were always sort of annoyed by the later Holy Roman Empire (which, as the old joke goes, was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire).
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