How well do you know ancient Byzantium?

Question

In the ancient Byzantine world, during the Holy Roman Empire, there were two specific words used for the Emperor and Empress....do you know what they are and where they originated?

The Holy Roman Empire, during the time of Otto I was split into two different realms, so to speak...the east, Byzantium, and the west, which was a Germanic kingdom in possession of Italy. Byzantium did not acknowledge the rights of the western kingdom. Otto II united them.

Answer 1

The word for Emperor was Basileus and the name for Empress was Basilissa. The origin is Mycenaean meaning
Chieftain. Homer used the word in his works when referring to Greek Kings. the Eastern half of the Holy Roman Empire adopted the word(s) when the rift between the west and east
happened. They wanted an Greek name for ruler as opposed to a Latin name(Emperor)

Answer 2

That was up until 1453 when Constantinople was conquered by the Ottomans, and that pretty much ended Byzantium. Part of the problem was the crusades treated this Christian kingdom as false, and actually destroyed part of the defenses in the 1200's on the way to the Holy Lands, and many plagues took a great deal of damage on them as well.

Answer 3

You got "the Holy Roman Empire" and Eastern Rome (the Byzantine Empire) confused there.

Answer 4

Pretty damn well baby, as I used to live in Istanbul and there was a bit of byzantine brickwork in our parking lot.
The other answerers are right. You have confused the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Roman Empire.
That 'basileus' stuff is true. The byzzes also used 'sebastos' as their equivalent of 'augustus'.

Answer 5

To answer this question, I have to divide it into two parts; how well do i know the ancient Byzantium, and the titles part.

Byzantium in a nutshell:

The Byzantine Empire or Byzantium is the term conventionally used since the 19th century to describe the Greek-speaking Roman Empire of the Middle Ages, centered around its capital of Constantinople. The Empire is also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, although this name is more commonly used when referring to the time before the fall of the Western Roman Empire. During much of its history it was known to many of its Western contemporaries as the Empire of the Greeks because of the dominance of Greek language, culture and population.To its inhabitants, the Empire was simply the Roman Empire and its emperors continued the unbroken succession of Roman emperors. In the Islamic world it was known primarily as‎ Biladur-Room, meaning the land of the Roman.

There is no consensus on exactly when the Byzantine period of Roman history began. Many consider Emperor Constantine I (reigned 306–337) to be the first "Byzantine Emperor". It was he who moved the imperial capital in 330 from Rome to Byzantium, refounded as Constantinople, or Nova Roma (New Rome).

Some date the beginnings of the Empire to the reign of Theodosius I (379–395) and Christianity's official supplanting of the pagan Roman religion, or following his death in 395, when the political division between East and West became permanent. Others place it yet later in 476, when Romulus Augustulus, traditionally considered the last western Emperor, was deposed, thus leaving sole imperial authority with the emperor in the Greek East. Others point to the reorganization of the empire in the time of Heraclius (ca. 620) when Latin titles and usages were officially replaced with Greek versions. Here I would like to add that Heraclius and his tens of thousands of soldiers were defeated badly by Khaled Bin Al-waleed, nicknamed by the prophet of Islam as the withdrawn sowrd of God, as Khaled was a brave Muslim and a talented military genius who has never been defeated in a battle. During the battle of Al-Yarmouk where Khaled met Heraclius, the roman soldiers, according to Hearclius’ orders were chained to each other so that they won’t be able to flee. Heraclius knew that Khaled whose reputation he knew very well, was leading the Muslim Army which was far lower in number compared to the thousand of the Romans.

In any case, the changeover was gradual and by 330, when Constantine inaugurated his new capital, the process of Hellenization and increasing Christianization was already under way.

The Empire is generally considered to have ended after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, although Greek rule continued over areas of the Empire's territory for several more years, until the fall of Mystras in 1460 and Trebizond in 1461.

Basileus and Basillissa (emperor and empress)

The Greek word Basileus signifies "sovereign". It is perhaps best known in English as a title used by Byzantine emperors, but also has a longer history of use for persons of authority in Ancient Greece. The etymology of basileus is unclear. The Mycenaean form was gwasileus denoting some sort of court official or local chieftain, but not an actual king. Most linguists assume that it is a non-Greek word that was adopted by Bronze Age Greeks from a preexisting linguistic substrate of the Eastern Mediterranean. Schindler (1976) argues for an inner-Greek innovation of the -eus inflection type from Indo-European material rather than a "Mediterranean" loan.
The first written instance of this word is found on the baked clay tablets discovered in excavations of Mycenaean palaces originally destroyed by fire. The tablets are dated from the 15th century BC to the 11th century BC. They were inscribed with the Linear B script, which was deciphered by Michael Ventris in 1952 and corresponds to a very early form of Greek.

The word basileus is written as qa-si-re-u and its original meaning was "chieftain" (in one particular tablet the chieftain of the guild of bronzesmiths is referred to as qa-si-re-u). The word can be contrasted with wanax, another word used more specifically for "king" and usually meaning "High King" or "overlord". With the collapse of Mycenaean society, the position of wanax disappeared, and the basileis were left as the topmost officials in Greek society. In the works of Homer wanax appears, in the form anax, mostly in descriptions of Zeus (as king of the gods) and of very few human monarchs, most notably Agamemnon. Otherwise the term survived almost exclusively in personal names (e.g., Anaxagoras, Pleistoanax). Most of the Greek leaders in Homer's works are described as basileis, which is conventionally rendered in English as "kings". However, a more accurate translation may be "princes" or "chieftains", which would better reflect conditions in Greek society in Homer's time, and also the roles ascribed to Homer's characters. Agamemnon tries to order around Achilles among many others, while another basileus serves as his charioteer.
A study by Drews (1983) has demonstrated that even at the apex of Geometric and Archaic Greek society, basileus does not automatically translate to "king". In a number of places authority was exercised by a college of basileis drawn from a particular clan or group, and the office had term limits. However, basileus could also be applied to the hereditary leaders of "tribal" states, like those of the Arcadians and the Messenians, in which cases the term approximated the meaning of "king".

Sorry if my nutshell answer turned into a cocconutshell answer and I hope it is the right shell.

Answer 6

no, but I know that it's northern counterpart, Moscovy, derived the word Tsar (Czar) from Ceasar.

Answer 7

ha

Answer 8

No haven't a clue - if you do can I ask why your asking?