title: Edith Wilson

text: In March 1915, the widow Galt was introduced to recently widowed U.S. President Woodrow Wilson at the White House by Helen Woodrow Bones (1874–1951). Bones was the president's first cousin and served as the official White House hostess after the death of Wilson's wife, Ellen Wilson. Wilson took an instant liking to Galt and proposed soon after meeting her. However, rumors that Wilson had cheated on his wife with Galt threatened the burgeoning relationship.


title: Edith Wilson

text: Lurid gossip that Wilson and Galt had murdered the First Lady further troubled the couple. Distressed at the effect such wild speculation could have on the authenticity of the presidency and respectability of his personal reputation, Wilson proposed that Edith Bolling Galt back out of their engagement. Instead, she insisted on postponing the wedding until the end of the official year of mourning for Ellen Axson Wilson. Wilson married Galt on December 18, 1915, at her home in Washington, D.C. Attended by 40 guests, the groom's pastor, Reverend Dr. James H. Taylor of Central Presbyterian Church, and the bride's, Reverend Dr. Herbert Scott Smith of St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, Washington, D.C., performed the wedding jointly.


title: Edith Wilson

text: As First Lady during World War I, Edith Bolling Wilson observed gasless Sundays, meatless Mondays, and wheatless Wednesdays to set an example for the federal rationing effort. Similarly, she set sheep to graze on the White House lawn rather than use manpower to mow it, and had their wool auctioned off for the benefit of the American Red Cross. Additionally, Edith Wilson became the first First Lady to travel to Europe during her term. She visited Europe with her husband on two separate occasions, in 1918 and 1919, to visit troops and to sign the Treaty of Versailles. During this time, her presence amongst the female royalty of Europe helped to cement America's status as a world power and propelled the position of First Lady to an equivalent standing in international politics.


title: Edith Wilson

text: Though the new First Lady had sound qualifications for the role of hostess, the social aspect of the administration was overshadowed by war in Europe and abandoned after the United States formally entered the conflict in 1917. Edith Wilson submerged her own life in her husband's, trying to keep him fit under tremendous strain, and accompanied him to Europe when the Allies conferred on terms of peace.


title: Edith Wilson

text: Following his attendance at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Woodrow Wilson returned to the United States to campaign for Senate approval of the peace treaty and the League of Nations Covenant. However, the president suffered a stroke that October which left him bedridden and partially paralyzed. The United States never did ratify the Treaty of Versailles nor join the League of Nations, which had initially been Wilson's concept. At the time, non-interventionist sentiment was strong.


title: Edith Wilson

text: Edith Wilson and others in the President's inner circle (including his physician and a few close friends) hid the true extent of the president's illness and disability from the American public. Edith also took over a number of routine duties and details of the executive branch of the government from the onset of Wilson's illness until he left office almost a year and a half later. From October 1919 to the end of Wilson's term on March 4, 1921, Edith, acting in the role of First Lady and shadow steward, decided who and which communications and matters of state were important enough to bring to the bedridden president. Edith Wilson later wrote: "I studied every paper sent from the different Secretaries or Senators and tried to digest and present in tabloid form the things that, despite my vigilance, had to go to the President. I, myself, never made a single decision regarding the disposition of public affairs. The only decision that was mine was what was important and what was not, and the very important decision of when to present matters to my husband." Edith became the sole communication link between the President and his Cabinet. She required they send her all pressing matters, memos, correspondence, questions, and requests.


title: Edith Wilson

text: Edith took her role very seriously, even successfully pushing for the removal of Secretary of State Robert Lansing after he conducted a series of Cabinet meetings without the President (or Edith herself) present. She also refused to allow the British ambassador, Edward Grey, an opportunity to present his credentials to the president unless Grey dismissed an aide who was known to have made demeaning comments about her. She assisted President Wilson in filling out paperwork, and would often add new notes or suggestions. She was made privy to classified information, and was entrusted with the responsibility of encoding and decoding encrypted messages.


title: Edith Wilson

text: In "My Memoir", published in 1939, Edith Wilson justified her self-proclaimed role of presidential "steward", arguing that her actions on behalf of Woodrow Wilson's presidency were sanctioned by Wilson's doctors; that they told her to do so for her husband's mental health. Edith Wilson maintained that she was simply a vessel of information for President Wilson; however, others in the White House did not trust her. Some believed that the marriage between Edith and Woodrow was hasty and controversial. Others did not approve of the marriage because they believed that Woodrow and Edith had begun communicating with each other while Woodrow was still married to Ellen Wilson.


title: Edith Wilson

text: In 1921, Joe Tumulty (Wilson's chief of staff) wrote: "No public man ever had a more devoted helpmate, and no wife a husband more dependent upon her sympathetic understanding of his problems ... Mrs. Wilson's strong physical constitution, combined with strength of character and purpose, has sustained her under a strain which must have wrecked most women". In subsequent decades, however, scholars were far more critical in their assessment of Edith Wilson's tenure as First Lady. Phyllis Lee Levin concluded that the effectiveness of Woodrow Wilson's policies were unnecessarily hampered by his wife, "a woman of narrow views and formidable determination". Judith Weaver opined that Edith Wilson underestimated her own role in Wilson's presidency. While she may not have made critical decisions, she did influence both domestic and international policy given her role as presidential gatekeeper. Dr. Howard Markel, a medical historian, has taken issue with Edith Wilson's claim of a benign "stewardship". Markel has opined that Edith Wilson "was, essentially, the nation's chief executive until her husband's second term concluded in March of 1921". While a widow of moderate education for her time, she nevertheless attempted to protect her husband and his legacy, if not the presidency, even if it meant exceeding her role as First Lady. This period of her life was dramatized in the 2021 historical fiction podcast "Edith!" starring Rosamund Pike.


title: Edith Wilson

text: Upon leaving the White House in March 1921, Edith and the former president moved into a home on S Street NW in Washington, D.C.. There she cared for him until his death on February 3, 1924. In subsequent years, she headed the Woman's National Democratic Club's board of governors when the club opened formally in 1924 and published her memoir in 1939.


title: Edith Wilson

text: On December 8, 1941, the day after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war, taking pains to draw a link with Wilson's April 1917 declaration of war. Edith Wilson was present during Roosevelt's address to Congress. On April 14, 1945, she attended Roosevelt's funeral at the White House. She later attended the January 20, 1961, inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.


title: Edith Wilson

text: Edith Wilson died of congestive heart failure on December 28, 1961, at age 89. She was to have been the guest of honor that day at the dedication ceremony for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge across the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia, on what would have been her husband's 105th birthday. She was buried next to her husband at the Washington National Cathedral.


title: Edith Wilson

text: Wilson left her home to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, with a condition that it be made into a museum honoring her husband. The Woodrow Wilson House opened as a museum in 1964. To the Library of Congress, Mrs. Wilson donated first President Wilson's presidential papers in 1939, then his personal library in 1946.


title: Edith Wilson

text: The Edith Bolling Wilson Birthplace Foundation & Museum in Wytheville, Virginia was established in 2008. The foundation has stabilized the first lady's birthplace and childhood home; it had been identified in May 2013 by Preservation Virginia as an Endangered Historic Site. The foundation's programs and exhibits aspire to build public awareness "honoring Mrs. Wilson's name, the contributions she made to this country, the institution of the presidency, and for the example she sets for women." The Foundation shares First Lady Mrs. Wilson's journey "From Wytheville to The White House".


title: Edith Wilson

text: In 2015, a former historic bank building in Wytheville, located on Main Street, was dedicated to the First Lady and bears her name. Adapted as the Bolling Wilson Hotel, it serves Wytheville residents and travelers alike.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: Sergei Viktorovich Skripal (; born 23 June 1951) is a former Russian military intelligence officer who acted as a double agent for the UK's intelligence services during the 1990s and early 2000s. In December 2004, he was arrested by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and later tried, convicted of high treason, and sentenced to 13 years in prison. He settled in the UK in 2010 following the Illegals Programme spy swap. He holds both Russian and British citizenship.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: On 4 March 2018, he and his daughter Yulia, a Russian citizen who was visiting him from Moscow, were poisoned with a Russian-developed Novichok nerve agent, and were admitted to Salisbury District Hospital in a critical condition. The poisoning was investigated by the British intelligence service as an attempted murder.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: On 29 March, Yulia was reported to be out of critical condition, and was "conscious and talking". A week later, on 6 April, it was announced that Sergei Skripal was no longer in critical condition. He was discharged from hospital on 18 May 2018.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: Sergei Skripal was born in Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russian SFSR, on 23 June 1951. His father worked for a land improvement contractor, while his mother was employed with the local Council of Deputies. He grew up in the town of Ozyorsk, also in Kaliningrad Oblast.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: In 1972, Skripal completed the military engineering school in Kaliningrad named Zhdanov, located in the village of Borisovo (formerly ) with the qualification of a sapper-paratrooper. He then studied at the Moscow and subsequently served in the Soviet Airborne Troops where he was deployed to Afghanistan during the Soviet–Afghan War under the command of Boris Gromov.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: Skripal was co-opted to the military intelligence (GRU) from the Airborne Troops. In the early 1990s, he was posted as a GRU officer at the embassy in Malta. In 1994, he obtained a position in the military attaché′s office in Madrid, Spain. In 1995, according to the FSB and other sources, while in Spain, he was recruited to British intelligence by British intelligence agent Pablo Miller posing as Antonio Alvarez de Hidalgo. According to intelligence sources cited by "The Times" in March 2018, Skripal was first spotted for potential development as an asset by Spanish intelligence but was approached by the British recruiter around July 1995 and was given the codename 'Forthwith'. According to the FSB, Pablo Miller was also involved in efforts to recruit other Russian assets and was in contact with Alexander Litvinenko.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: In 1996, due to his diabetes, Skripal was sent back to Moscow, where he went on to work in the GRU headquarters and for a while was acting director of the GRU personnel department. Skripal held the rank of colonel when he retired, due to his inadequate health condition, in 1999. He continued to make trips to Spain, where he had a house near Málaga at his disposal, provided by his handlers.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: According to Russian prosecutors, he began working for the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in 1995 and passed on state secrets, such as the identities of Russian intelligence agents. After his retirement, he worked in the Household Department of the Russian foreign ministry, while continuing to work for MI6. He was alleged to have blown the cover of 300 Russian agents.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: In December 2004, Skripal was arrested outside his house in Moscow's Krylatskoye District shortly after returning from Britain. In August 2006, he was convicted of spying for Britain. Prosecutors said he had been supplying MI6 with information since the 1990's and was paid $100,000 by MI6 for the information. Amid controversial circumstances, he was convicted under "Article 275" of the Russian Criminal Code (high treason in the form of espionage) by the Moscow Regional Military Court in a trial conducted behind closed doors. The prosecution, which was represented by Chief Military Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky, argued for a 15-year sentence – instead of the 20-year maximum under Article 275 – in recognition of mitigating circumstances such as his cooperation with investigators.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: Skripal was sentenced to 13 years in a high-security detention facility; he was also stripped of his military rank and decorations. The affair was not revealed to the public until after he was sentenced in August 2006. Skripal's lawyers appealed the sentence, which was upheld by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court on 30 November 2006.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: On 9 July 2010, Skripal and three other Russians, who had been imprisoned for spying for the US, were freed as part of a spy swap. The four men were exchanged for ten Russian agents arrested in the United States as part of the Illegals Program. The UK government insisted on Skripal being included in the swap.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: Skripal moved to Salisbury, Wiltshire, where he purchased a house in 2011. According to British security officials, Skripal continued to provide information to the UK and other Western intelligence agencies for a period after 2010.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: Skripal's wife died in 2012 of disseminated endometrial cancer. His daughter returned to Moscow in 2014 and worked in sales. His son died aged 43 in March 2017, in unknown circumstances, on a visit to Saint Petersburg; Skripal's older brother died within the two years before the poisoning. Both Skripal's wife and his son are buried in a cemetery local to Salisbury.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: In May 2018, "The New York Times" reported that Skripal, though retired, was "still in the game". While living in Britain, he had travelled to other countries, meeting with intelligence officials of the Czech Republic, Estonia, and Colombia, most likely discussing Russian spying techniques. In June 2016, he travelled to Estonia to meet local spies. Russian exile Valery Morozov told Channel 4 News Sergei Skripal was still working and in regular contact with military intelligence officers at the Russian Embassy.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: While it was initially reported that Skripal was a close confidant of Christopher Steele, the British ex-spy who compiled the controversial Steele dossier, the "Telegraph" later reported an accusation from anonymous sources that this trail of evidence linking Skripal to Steele was fabricated by Russian Intelligence.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: On 28 September 2018, the news magazine "Focus" reported, referring to a statement of a senior official from NATO's Allied Command Counter-Intelligence Unit (ACCI) in Mons, that until 2017 Skripal worked for four intelligence agencies of NATO countries. Skripal not only traveled, accompanied by MI6 officials to Prague, where he contributed information about the active Russian spy network, some agents Skripal knew from his active service. He provided information to the Estonian secret service in Tallinn, which enabled them to identify three active Russian undercover operatives. Skripal also worked with the Spanish secret service Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, informing the agency about the Russian organized crime in the Spanish region of Costa del Sol. All the trips were organized and approved by the British foreign intelligence service, MI6. Mark Urban reported that in 2017 Skripal was scheduled to meet with the Swiss Intelligence Service of the Federation.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: On 4 March 2018, Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia, who was visiting from Moscow, were found "slipping in and out of consciousness on a public bench" near a shopping centre in Salisbury by a doctor and nurse who were passing by. While at Salisbury District Hospital, they were put into induced comas to prevent organ damage due to being poisoned by the lethal nerve agent Novichok. The police declared a major incident as a number of agencies were involved. Following the incident, health authorities checked 21 members of the emergency services and the public for symptoms; two police officers were treated for possible minor symptoms, said to be itchy eyes and wheezing, while a third, Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, who had been sent to Sergei Skripal's house, was in a serious condition. , Bailey remained seriously ill but stable. By 22 March 2018, he had recovered enough to be discharged from the hospital, and by 15 January 2019, he returned to active duty. , Skripal and his daughter remained critically ill. On 29 March, Yulia was reported to be out of critical condition, "conscious and talking".


title: Sergei Skripal

text: On 6 March, it was agreed under the National Counter Terrorism Policing Network that the Counter Terrorism Command based within the Metropolitan Police would take over the investigation from Wiltshire Police. Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, head of Counter Terrorism Policing, appealed for witnesses to the incident following a COBR meeting chaired by Home Secretary Amber Rudd.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: On 12 March 2018, Prime Minister Theresa May identified the nerve agent used in the attack as Russian-developed Novichok and demanded explanation from the Russian government. Two days later, May said that Russia was responsible for the incident and announced the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats in retaliation.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: In mid-March 2018, Russia said that its diplomats were denied access to both Sergei Skripal and his daughter, who is a Russian national. On 31 March 2018 the BBC reported that the UK was considering the Russian Embassy's request, 'in line with its obligations under international and domestic law.'


title: Sergei Skripal

text: On 6 April, the Home Office rejected the visa application of Sergei Skripal's niece, Viktoria Skripal, because it "did not comply with the immigration rules". Viktoria Skripal had intended to travel to Britain to take Yulia back to Russia.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: On 7 April, the hospital reported that Sergei Skripal was improving rapidly and was no longer in a critical condition, two days after the improvement had been reported in Moscow following a phone call from his daughter.


title: Sergei Skripal

text: On 18 May 2018, Sergei Skripal was discharged from the hospital. The Director of Nursing said that further treatment will be provided outside the hospital and that treating the Skripals had been "a huge and unprecedented challenge".


title: Sergei Skripal

text: On 16 February 2019, "The Sunday Times" reported, without identified sources, that Sergei Skripal "has suffered a deterioration in his health and is being treated by doctors".


title: Sergei Skripal

text: On 7 June 2020, "The Sunday Times" reported that Sergei and his daughter have been settled in New Zealand under new identities. The "New Zealand Herald" raised a number of doubts about the report a few weeks later, however.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: The dong (Vietnamese: "đồng", Chữ Nôm: 銅) (; ; sign: ₫ or informally đ in Vietnamese; code: VND) has been the currency of Vietnam since 3 May 1978. It is issued by the State Bank of Vietnam. The dong was also the currency of the predecessor states of North Vietnam and South Vietnam, having replaced the previously used French Indochinese piastre.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: Formerly, it was subdivided into 10 hao ("hào"), which were further subdivided into 10 "xu", neither of which are now used due to inflation. The Vietnamese dong has increasingly moved towards exclusively using banknotes, with lower denominations printed on paper and denominations over 10,000 dong, worth about 40¢ dollar or euro, printed on polymer, as of 2022 no coins are used. Generally, Vietnam is moving towards digital payments.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: As of December 2022, the Vietnamese dong was the third-lowest valued currency unit (behind the Venezuelan bolivar and Iranian rial), with one United States dollar equalling around 23,575 dong.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: The word "dong" came from the material which the pennies were made (bronze). The term refers to bronze coins used in feudal China and Vietnam. The term "hao" is a loanword from the Chinese "háo" (), meaning a tenth of a currency unit, while "xu" came from French "sou". The sign is encoded .


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: The piastre (known in Vietnam as "silver"), was the currency of French Indochina between 1885 and 1952.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: In 1946, the Viet Minh government (later to become the government of North Vietnam) introduced its own currency, the dong, to replace the French Indochinese piastre at par. Two revaluations followed, in 1951 and 1959; the first was at a rate of 100:1, the second at a rate of 1,000:1.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: Notes dually denominated in piastres and dong were issued in 1953 for the State of Vietnam, which evolved into South Vietnam in 1954. On 22 September 1975, after the fall of Saigon, the currency in South Vietnam was changed to a "liberation dong" worth 500 old Southern dongs.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: After Vietnam was reunified, the dong was also unified on 3 May 1978. One new dong equalled one Northern dong or 0.8 Southern "liberation" dong.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: On 14 September 1985, the dong was revalued again, with one new dong worth 10 old dong. At that time, Vietnamese economists believed that revaluing the currency would increase its value, but it turned out to have the opposite effect: savings of many people were wiped out, the currency experienced unprecedently heavy inflation that peaked at 774.7% in 1986 and prices skyrocketed. For example, in 1986, the price of agricultural products increased by 2000% compared to ten years before. To aggravate this problem, the government banned all forms of non-state-owned internal trade, which they believed to be capitalistic, resulting in an economic crisis so severe that Tố Hữu referred to it as a "vertical downturn". Despite the inflation rates having stabilised as part of the Đổi Mới reforms, especially during the 1990s and early 2000s, the effects of the crisis still last in the value of the dong, one of the lowest in the world today.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: In 1978, aluminium coins dated 1976 were introduced in denominations of 1, 2 and 5 hao, as well as 1 dong. The coins were minted by the Berlin Mint in the German Democratic Republic and bear the state crest on the obverse and denomination on the reverse. Due to the chronic inflation experienced by Vietnam during the 1980s and 1990s, these coins lost all their relevant value and no coins were circulated for many years after this series.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: Commemorative coins in copper, brass, copper-nickel, silver, and gold have been issued since 1986, but none of these have ever been used in circulation.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: The State Bank of Vietnam resumed issuing coins on December 17, 2003. The new coins, minted by the Mint of Finland, were in denominations of 200, 500, 1,000, 2,000, and 5,000 dongs in either nickel-clad steel or brass-clad steel. Prior to its reintroduction, Vietnamese consumers had to exchange banknotes for tokens with a clerk before purchasing goods from vending machines. This was also to help the state ease the cost of producing large quantities of small denomination banknotes, which tended to wear easily. Many residents expressed excitement at seeing coins reappear after many years, as well as concern for the limited usefulness of the 200 dong coins due to ongoing inflationary pressures.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: Since the launch of the 2003 coin series, the State Bank has had some difficulties with making the acceptance of coins universal despite the partial discontinuation of smaller notes, to the point of some banks refusing coin cash deposits or the cashing in of large numbers of coins. This has prompted laws requiring private and municipal banks to transact and offer services for coins and the full discontinuation of small denomination and cotton-based notes. Also, the coins did not gain popularity from the Vietnamese people. Eventually, State Bank of Vietnam withdrew its distribution in April 2011.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: In 1978, the State Bank of Vietnam ("Ngân hàng Nhà nước Việt Nam") introduced notes in denominations of 5 hao, 1, 5, 10, 20, and 50 dong dated 1976. In 1980, 2 and 10 dong notes were added, followed by 30 and 100 dong notes in 1981. These notes were discontinued in 1985 as they gradually lost value due to inflation and economic instability.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: In 1985, notes were introduced in denominations of 5 hao, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, and 500 dongs. As inflation became endemic, these first banknotes were followed by 200, 1,000, 2,000, and 5,000 dong notes in 1987, by 10,000 and 50,000 dong notes in 1990, by a 20,000 dong note in 1991, a 100,000 dong note in 1994, a 500,000 dong note in 2003, and a 200,000 dong note in 2006. Banknotes with denominations of 5,000 dong and under have been discontinued from production, but as of 2015 are still in wide circulation.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: Five banknote series have appeared. Except for the current series, dated 2003, all were confusing to the user, lacking unified themes and coordination in their designs. The first table below shows the latest banknotes, of 100 dong or higher, prior to the current series.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: On 7 June 2007, the government ordered cessation of the issuance of the cotton 50,000 and 100,000 dong notes. They were taken out of circulation by 1 September 2007. State Bank of Vietnam 10,000 and 20,000 dong cotton notes are no longer in circulation as of 1 January 2013.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: In 2003 Vietnam began replacing its cotton banknotes with plastic polymer banknotes, claiming that this would reduce the cost of printing. Many newspapers in the country criticized these changes, citing mistakes in printing and alleging that the son of the governor of the State Bank of Vietnam benefited from printing contracts. The government clamped down on these criticisms by banning two newspapers from publishing for a month and considering other sanctions against other newspapers.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: Even though the 2003 series banknotes listed in the table below have now completely replaced the old notes of the same denominations, as of 2019 the cotton fibre banknotes of 200, 500, 1,000, 2,000, and 5,000 dongs still remain in wide circulation and are universally accepted.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: A commemorative polymer 50 dong banknote dedicated to the fiftieth anniversary of the State Bank of Vietnam was issued in 2001, but its face value is so tiny that it clearly was meant only for collectors. The note is available in three forms, by itself, in a presentation folder or in a presentation folder in an envelope. In 2016, a 100 đồng banknote was issued on cotton-based paper to commemorate the 65th anniversary of central banking.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: their designs were changed every five to six months, and they had expiration dates five or six months after the date of issue.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: The checks worked until the banking system was upgraded to handle electronic transfers of large amounts of "đồng", making most large cash transactions unnecessary.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: In the Vietnamese language, "đồng" can be used as a generic term for any currency by adding the name of a country as a qualifier. This practice is more common for more esoteric units of currency.


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: In present-day Vietnam, when mentioning an amount of money, the currency can be (and usually is) omitted and is replaced by words like "thousand", "million", and "billion".


title: Vietnamese đồng

text: After the revaluation of the Zimbabwean dollar on 1 August 2006, the dong became the least valued currency unit for months. Around 21 March 2007, the revalued Zimbabwean dollar regained least valued currency status (in terms of black market exchange rate), and on 7 September 2007 in terms of official exchange rate. After the use of the Zimbabwean dollar ceased on 12 April 2009, the dong was the second least valued currency unit after the Iranian rial as of 28 November 2014. Since 19 June 2014, the Vietnamese dong has been devalued a total of five times in an effort to help spur exports and to ensure the stability of the currency.


title: Grappling

text: Grappling, in hand-to-hand combat, describes sports that consist of gripping or seizing the opponent. Grappling is used at close range to gain a physical advantage over an opponent, either by imposing a position or causing injury. Grappling is a broad term that encompasses many disciplines. These various martial arts can be practiced both as combat sports and for self-defense. Grappling contests often involve takedowns and ground control, and may end when a contestant concedes defeat, also known as a submission or tap out.


title: Grappling

text: Grappling most commonly does not include striking or the use of weapons. However, some fighting styles or martial arts known especially for their grappling techniques teach tactics that include strikes and weapons either alongside grappling or combined with it. Grappling appeared in the 1950s.


title: Grappling

text: Grappling techniques can be broadly subdivided into clinch fighting; takedowns and throws; submission holds and pinning or controlling techniques; and sweeps, reversals, turnovers, and escapes.


title: Grappling

text: The degree to which grappling is utilized in different fighting systems varies. Some systems, such as amateur wrestling, pehlwani, judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu are exclusively grappling arts and do not allow striking. Some other grappling arts allow some limited forms of striking, for example in sumo and in combat jiu jitsu it is possible to strike with open hands (slapping). Many combat sports, such as shooto and mixed martial arts competitions, use both grappling and striking extensively as part of the sport.


title: Grappling

text: Grappling is not allowed in some martial arts and combat sports, usually for the sake of focusing on other aspects of combat such as punching, kicking or mêlée weapons. Opponents in these types of matches, however, still grapple with each other occasionally when fatigued or in pain; when either occurs, the referee will step in and restart the match, sometimes giving a warning to one or both of the fighters. Examples of these include boxing, kickboxing, taekwondo, karate, and fencing. While prolonged grappling in Muay Thai will result in a separation of the competitors, the art extensively uses the clinch hold known as a double collar tie.


title: Grappling

text: Grappling techniques and defenses to grappling techniques are also considered important in self-defense applications and in law enforcement. The most common grappling techniques taught for self-defense are escapes from holds and application of pain compliance techniques.


title: Grappling

text: Stand-up grappling is arguably an integral part of all grappling and clinch fighting arts, considering that two combatants generally start fighting from a stand-up position. The aim of stand-up grappling varies according to the martial arts or combat sports in question. Defensive stand-up grappling concerns itself with pain-compliance holds and escapes from possible grappling holds applied by an opponent, while offensive grappling techniques include submission holds, trapping, takedowns and throws, all of which can be used to inflict serious damage, or to move the fight to the ground. Stand-up grappling can also be used both offensively and defensively simultaneously with striking, either to trap an opponents arms while striking, prevent the opponent from obtaining sufficient distance to strike effectively, or to bring the opponent close to apply, for instance, knee strikes.


title: Grappling

text: In combat sports, stand-up grappling usually revolves around successful takedowns and throws. Grappling is a major part of combat glima and Løse-tak sport glima, and the fight continues on the ground if both combatants end up there. In other martial sports such as MMA, the fight may continue on the ground.


title: Grappling

text: Ground grappling refers to all the grappling techniques that are applied while the grapplers are no longer in a standing position. A large part of most martial arts and combat sports which feature ground grappling is positioning and obtaining a dominant position. A dominant position (usually on top) allows the dominant grappler a variety of options, including: attempting to escape by standing up, obtaining a pin or hold-down to control and exhaust the opponent, executing a submission hold, or striking the opponent. The bottom grappler is, on the other hand, concerned with escaping the situation and improving their position, typically by using a sweep or reversal. In some disciplines, especially those where the guard is used, the bottom grappler may also be able to finish the fight from the bottom by a submission hold. Some people feel more confident on the bottom because of the large number of submissions that can be accomplished from having the opponent in full-guard.


title: Grappling

text: When unskilled fighters get embroiled in combat, a common reaction is to grab the opponent in an attempt to slow the situation down by holding them still, resulting in an unsystematic struggle that relies on brute force. A skilled fighter, in contrast, can perform takedowns as a way of progressing to a superior position such as a Mount (grappling) or side control, or using clinch holds and ground positions to set up strikes, choke holds, and joint locks. A grappler who has been taken down to the ground can use defensive positions such as the Guard (grappling), which protects against being mounted or attacked. If a grappler is strong and can utilize leverage well, a takedown or throw itself can be a fight-ending maneuver; the impact can render an opponent unconscious. On the other hand, grappling also offers the possibility of controlling an opponent without injuring them. For their reason, most police staff receive some training in grappling. Likewise, grappling sports have been devised so that their participants can compete using full physical effort without injuring their opponents.


title: Grappling

text: Grappling is called "dumog" in Eskrima. The term "chin na" in Chinese martial arts deals with the use of grappling to achieve submission or incapacitation of the opponent (these may involve the use of acupressure points). Some Chinese martial arts, aikido, some eskrima systems, the Viking martial art of glima, as well as medieval and Renaissance European martial arts, practice grappling while one or both participants is armed. Their practice is significantly more dangerous than unarmed grappling and generally requires a great deal of training.


title: Grappling

text: There are many different regional styles of grappling around the world that are practiced within a limited geographic area or country. Several grappling styles like judo, shoot wrestling, Cornish wrestling, catch wrestling, submission grappling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, sambo, hapkido and several types of wrestling including freestyle and Greco-Roman have gained global popularity. Judo, Freestyle Wrestling, and Greco-Roman Wrestling are Olympic Sports while Grappling, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and Sambo have their own World Championship Competitions. Other known grappling-oriented systems are sumo, shuai jiao, malla-yuddha and aikido.


title: Grappling

text: In these arts, the object is either to take down and pin the opponent, or to catch the adversary in a specialized chokehold or joint lock which forces them to submit and admit defeat or be rendered helpless (unconscious or broken limbs). There are two forms of dress for grappling that dictate pace and style of action: with a jacket, such as a "gi" or kurtka, and without (No-Gi). The jacket, or "gi", form most often utilizes grips on the cloth to control the opponent's body, while the "no-"gi"" form emphasizes body control of the torso and head using only the natural holds provided by the body. The use of a jacket is compulsory in judo competition, sambo competition, and most Brazilian jiu-jitsu competition, as well as a variety of folk wrestling styles around the world. Jackets are not used in many forms of wrestling, such as Olympic Freestyle, Greco-Roman wrestling and Grappling.


title: Grappling

text: Grappling techniques are also used in mixed martial arts along with striking techniques. Strikes can be used to set up grappling techniques and vice versa.


title: Grappling

text: The ADCC Submission Fighting World Championship is the most prestigious submission grappling tournament in the world and is held biannually.


title: Grappling

text: The World Jiu-Jitsu Championship, also commonly called the Mundials (Portuguese for "Worlds"), is the most prestigious jacketed full range (takedown, position, and submission inclusive) grappling tournament in the world. The event also hosts a non-jacketed division (no gi), but that sub-event is not as prestigious as ADCC in terms of pure non-jacketed competition.


title: Grappling

text: United World Wrestling (UWW) is the international governing body for the sport of wrestling. It presides over international competitions for various forms of wrestling, including Grappling for men and women. The flagship Grappling's event of UWW is the Grappling World Championships.


title: Grappling

text: The North American Grappling Association (NAGA) is an organization started in 1995 that holds Submission Grappling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournaments throughout North America and Europe. NAGA is the largest submission grappling association in the world with over 175,000 participants worldwide, including some of the top submission grapplers and MMA fighters in the world. NAGA grappling tournaments consist of gi and no-gi divisions. No-Gi competitors compete under rules drafted by NAGA. Gi competitors compete under standardized Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu rules. Notable Champions Frank Mir, Joe Fiorentino, Jon Jones, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Anthony Porcelli and Antonio Bustorff.


title: Grappling

text: GRiND is the first Indian Pro Grappling tournament series started in May 2017 conducting grappling championships (position and submission included). There is a first time no "Gi" event series in India.


title: Aftermath (2017 film)

text: Aftermath is a 2017 American drama thriller film directed by Elliott Lester and written by Javier Gullón. The film, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Scoot McNairy, Maggie Grace, and Martin Donovan, was released on April 7, 2017, by Lionsgate Premiere. It is based on events and people surrounding the 2002 Überlingen mid-air collision of a passenger airliner with a cargo jet, although the names, places, nationalities, and incidents were changed. It was released on video on demand.


title: Aftermath (2017 film)

text: Roman Melnyk, a construction worker, is allowed to leave work early to prepare for the arrival of his wife Olena and pregnant daughter Nadiya from New York City, aboard flight AX 112. At the airport to welcome his family, Roman receives the news that AX 112, with his wife and daughter on board, had been in an accident. Roman is devastated and blames the air traffic controller for the deaths of his family.


title: Aftermath (2017 film)

text: Meanwhile, Jacob "Jake" Bonanos, an air traffic controller, is happily married to Christina with whom he has a young son named Samuel. Jake is on duty the night of the crash, which occurs when his colleague is on coffee break, forcing Jake to do both their jobs, and the telephone lines needed to communicate with other airports are briefly down while under maintenance. He is devastated after seeing AX 112 and the other flight, DH 616, disappear from the radar, knowing the two planes collided and were destroyed. Although the investigators cannot hold Jake responsible for the crash and the passengers' deaths, he blames himself; as time passes, he slowly unravels, straining the relationship with his family, and is unwilling to discuss what happened.


title: Aftermath (2017 film)

text: It is reported that all 271 passengers and crew were killed in the mid-air collision. Roman goes to the crash site and, posing as a volunteer with no relationship with the victims, recovers his daughter's necklace and the bodies of his wife and daughter. At home Roman stays hidden inside, when Tessa Gorbett, a journalist, approaches, expressing interest in writing a book on the incident. She ends up leaving behind some prior articles of plane disasters she had written about (to show her fidelity to accuracy and objectivity) through the mail slot of the door.


title: Aftermath (2017 film)

text: Because of the seriousness of the incident, his company's lawyer advises Jake to move to another state and adopt a new name for his and his family's safety. Roman meets lawyers John and James Gullick, who unsuccessfully try to convince him to sign an agreement stating that the airline will pay his expenses for medical and mental healthcare, plus $85,000 and $75,000 in damages for the loss of his wife and daughter respectively. Roman refuses to sign it, as neither the company nor the lawyers will express apologies for the loss of his family.


title: Aftermath (2017 film)

text: One year later, Roman and other crash victims' relatives attend the inauguration of a newly completed memorial at the crash site. Jake, having moved to another state, now works at a travel agency, under the name "Pat Dealbert", and lives alone. Roman has also moved to another town and now works as a carpenter.


title: Aftermath (2017 film)

text: Roman meets Tessa and asks her, as a favor, to find Jake. Tessa later reveals Jake's cover name and occupation, but she initially refuses to give his address. Roman later tracks down the building where Jake is working and follows him to his apartment. There, after waiting a day, on a day when Christina and Samuel happen to be visiting Jake for the weekend, Roman confronts him at his door. Jake tells him it was an accident without apologizing, so Roman stabs him in the torso and neck. Jake falls to the floor and bleeds to death, while Christina and Samuel sob and Roman deliriously sits down next to them on the couch.


title: Aftermath (2017 film)

text: Roman is convicted of murder and serves 10 years of his prison term, then is released early on parole, given the extenuating circumstances that motivated his crime. While visiting his family's grave, he meets a stranger. The young man turns out to be Samuel, who has tracked Roman down with the intention of killing him to avenge his father's murder. However, Roman apologizes, and Samuel, overcome with emotion, realizes he cannot go through with the execution because it's not what he was taught. He allows Roman to leave. Roman walks away alive, but now must spend the rest of his life dealing with the aftermath of his crime.


title: Aftermath (2017 film)

text: On June 23, 2015, it was announced that Arnold Schwarzenegger would star in Javier Gullón's action drama script "478", which would be produced by Darren Aronofsky's Protozoa Pictures.


title: Aftermath (2017 film)

text: On November 4, 2015, Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films (EFOF) came on board to finance and produce the film along with Protozoa, which Elliott Lester would direct. Lionsgate Premiere would release the film domestically, which would be produced by Protozoa's Aronofsky, Scott Franklin, and Eric Watson, and EFOF's Randall Emmett and George Furla, along with Peter Dealbert.


title: Aftermath (2017 film)

text: In November 2015, Highland Film Group sold the film to different international distributors at the American Film Market. On December 24, 2015, Mariana Klaveno was cast in the film to play Eve Sanders, an airline representative who breaks the news to Roman (played by Schwarzenegger) of his tragic loss.


title: Aftermath (2017 film)

text: Principal photography on the film began on December 14, 2015, in Columbus, Ohio, previously scheduled to begin on December 6. The film was expected to wrap up in mid-January 2016.


title: Aftermath (2017 film)

text: , the film holds a 41% approval rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 56 reviews with an average score of 5.2/10. On Metacritic the film has a score of 44 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Aftermath (2017 film)

text: Vitaly Kaloyev, upon whose recollection of the actual events the film is based, criticised the film because of some "distortions". According to Kaloyev, he, unlike the main character of the film, did not seek anyone's pity or apology, but only wanted to achieve justice. Additionally, he stated that the real air traffic controller, Nielsen, unlike the air traffic controller portrayed in the film, showed no signs of remorse, but on the contrary behaved with arrogance and contempt.


title: Roman people

text: The Romans (; ) were a cultural group, variously referred to as an ethnicity' or a nationality,' that in classical antiquity, from the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD, came to rule large parts of Europe, the Near East and North Africa through conquests made during the Roman Republic and the later Roman Empire. Originally only referring to the Italic Latin citizens of Rome itself, the meaning of "Roman" underwent considerable changes throughout the long history of Roman civilisation as the borders of the Roman state expanded and contracted. At times, different groups within Roman society also had different ideas as to what it meant to be Roman. Aspects such as geography, language, and ethnicity could be seen as important by some, whereas others saw Roman citizenship and culture or behaviour as more important.' At the height of the Roman Empire, Roman identity was a collective geopolitical identity, extended to nearly all subjects of the Roman emperors and encompassing vast regional and ethnic diversity.'


title: Roman people

text: As the land under Roman rule increased from the 4th century BC onwards, Roman citizenship was gradually extended to the various peoples under Roman dominion. Citizenship grants, demographic growth, and settler and military colonies rapidly increased the number of Roman citizens. The increase achieved its peak with Emperor Caracalla's AD 212 Antonine Constitution, which extended citizenship rights to all free inhabitants of the empire. It is for the most part not clear to what extent the majority of Roman citizens in antiquity regarded themselves as being Roman. Most likely, local identities were prominent throughout the Roman Empire due to its vast geographical extent, but Roman identity provided a larger sense of common identity and became important when distinguishing from non-Romans, such as barbarian settlers and invaders. Roman culture was far from homogeneous; though there was a predominant Hellenistic-inspired cultural idiom, one of the strengths of the Roman Empire was also its ability to incorporate traditions from other cultures. Rome's cultural flexibility precluded the development of a strong Roman 'core identity' in Italy, but also contributed to the empire's longevity.


title: Roman people

text: The Roman Empire affected the personal identities of its subject peoples to a considerable extent and Roman identity lasted throughout the lands of the empire until long after the Roman Empire itself had faded away. The collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century ended the political domination of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, but Roman identity survived in the west as an important political resource. Through the failures of the surviving Eastern Roman Empire, also called the Byzantine Empire, of reconquering and keeping control of the west and suppression from the new Germanic kingdoms, Roman identity faded away in the west, more or less disappearing in the 8th and 9th centuries. Increasingly, Western Europeans only began applying the designation of Roman to the citizens of the city of Rome itself. In the Greek-speaking east, still under imperial control, Roman identity survived until the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 and beyond, though it increasingly transformed into an ethnic identity, marked by Greek language and adherence to Orthodox Christianity, a precursor to modern Greek ethnic identity. The two major groups still clinging to Roman identity throughout the Middle Ages—the Byzantine Greeks of the eastern empire and the citizens of Rome itself—drifted apart linguistically and religiously and eventually ceased to recognise each other as Roman.


title: Roman people

text: Whereas Roman identity faded away in most of the lands where it was once prominent, for some regions and peoples it proved considerably more tenacious. In Italy, 'Romans' ("Romani" in Latin and Italian) has continuously and uninterruptedly been the demonym of the citizens of Rome ("Roma" in Latin and Italian) from the foundation of the city to the present-day. During the Eastern Roman Empire and for some time after its fall, Greeks identified as "Romioi", or related names, though the earlier concept of "Hellenes" eventually returned supreme. In the Alps, Roman identity survived uninterrupted, despite Frankish efforts at suppression, in the names of two groups in Switzerland that still evokes their descent from these populations: the Romands and the Romansh people. Several ethnonyms of the Balkan Romance peoples, whose descent in most cases is unclear, evoke Roman identity. Several names derive from the Latin "Romani" (such as the Romanians, Aromanians and Istro-Romanians), or from the Germanic "walhaz" (a term originally referring to the Romans; adopted in the form 'Vlach' as the self-designation of the Megleno-Romanians).


title: Roman people

text: The term 'Roman' is today used interchangeably to describe a historical timespan, a material culture, a geographical location, and a personal identity. Though these concepts are related, they are not identical. Many modern historians tend to have a preferred idea of what being Roman meant, so-called "Romanitas", but this was a term rarely used in Ancient Rome itself.' Like all identities, the identity of 'Roman' was flexible, dynamic and multi-layered,' and never static or unchanging.' Given that Rome was a geographically vast and chronologically long-lived state, there is no simple definition of what being Roman meant and definitions were inconsistent already in antiquity.' Nevertheless, some elements remained common throughout much of Roman history.


title: Roman people

text: Some ancient Romans considered aspects such as geography, language, and ethnicity as important markers of Romanness, whereas others saw Roman citizenship and culture or behaviour as more important.' At the height of the Roman Empire, Roman identity formed a collective geopolitical identity, extended to nearly all subjects of the Roman emperors and encompassing vast regional and ethnical diversity.' Often, what individual believed and did was far more important to the concept of Roman identity than long bloodlines and shared descent.' The key to 'Romanness' in the minds of some famous Roman orators, such as Cicero, was keeping with Roman tradition and serving the Roman state.' Cicero's view of Romanness were partly formed by his status as a "new man", the first of his family to serve in the Roman Senate, lacking prestigious lines of Roman descent himself.' This is not to say that the importance of blood kinship was wholly dismissed. Orators such as Cicero frequently appealed to their noble contemporaries to live up to the 'greatness of their forefathers'.' These appeals were typically only invoked towards illustrious noble families, with other important traditions emphasising Rome's collective descent.


title: Roman people

text: Throughout its history, Rome proved to be uniquely capable of incorporating and integrating other peoples (Romanisation). This sentiment originated from the city's foundation myths, including Rome being founded as something akin to a political sanctuary by Romulus, as well as the rape of the Sabine women, which represented how different peoples had commingled since the very beginning of the city.' Cicero and other Roman authors sneered at peoples such as the Athenians, who prided themselves in their shared descent, and instead found pride in Rome's status as a "mongrel nation".' Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a Greek historian who lived in Roman times, even embellished the multicultural origin of the Romans, writing that Romans had since the foundation of Rome welcomed innumerable immigrants not only from the rest of Italy, but from the entire world, whose cultures merged with theirs.


title: Roman people

text: A handful of Roman authors, such as Tacitus and Suetonius, expressed concerns in their writings concerning Roman "blood purity" as Roman citizens from outside of Roman Italy increased in number. Neither author, however, suggested that the naturalisation of new citizens should stop, only that manumissions (freeing slaves) and grants of citizenship should be less frequent. Their concerns of blood purity did not match modern ideas of race or ethnicity, and had little to do with features such as skin colour or physical appearance. Terms such as "Aethiop", which Romans used for black people, carried no social implications, and though phenotype-related stereotypes certainly existed in Ancient Rome, inherited physical characteristics were typically not relevant to social status; people who looked different from the typical Mediterranean populace, such as black people, were not excluded from any profession and there are no records of stigmas or biases against "mixed race" relationships. The main dividing social differences in Ancient Rome were not based on physical features, but rather on differences in class or rank. Romans practised slavery extensively, but slaves in Ancient Rome were part of various different ethnic groups, and were not enslaved because of their ethnic affiliation. According to the English historian Emma Dench, it was "notoriously difficult to detect slaves by their appearance" in Ancient Rome.


title: Roman people

text: Although Ancient Rome has been termed an 'evidently non-racist society', Romans carried considerable cultural stereotypes and prejudices against cultures and peoples that were not integrated into the Roman world, i.e. "barbarians". Though views differed through Roman history, the attitude towards peoples beyond the Roman frontier among most Roman writers in late antiquity can be summed up with "the only good barbarian is a dead barbarian". Throughout antiquity, the majority of Roman emperors included anti-barbarian imagery on their coinage, such as the emperor or Victoria (the personification and goddess of victory) being depicted as stepping on or dragging defeated barbarian enemies. Per the writings of Cicero, what made people barbarians were not their language or descent, but rather their customs and character, or lack thereof. Romans viewed themselves as superior over foreigners, but this stemmed not from perceived biological differences, but rather from what they perceived as a superior way of life. 'Barbarian' was as such a cultural, rather than biological, term. It was not impossible for a barbarian to become a Roman; the Roman state was itself seen as having the duty to conquer and transform, i.e. civilise, barbarian peoples.A particularly disliked group of non-Romans within the empire were the Jews. The majority of the Roman populace detested Jews and Judaism, though views were more varied among the Roman elite. Although many, such as Tacitus, were also hostile to the Jews, others, such as Cicero, were merely unsympathetically indifferent and some did not consider the Jews to be barbarians at all. The Roman state was not wholly opposed to the Jews, since there was a sizeable Jewish population in Rome itself, as well as at least thirteen synagogues in the city. Roman antisemitism, which led to several persecutions and massacres, was not rooted in racial prejudice, but rather in the perception that the Jews, uniquely among conquered peoples, refused to integrate into the Roman world. The Jews adhered to their own set of rules, restrictions and obligations, which were typically either disliked or misunderstood by the Romans, and they remained faithful to their own religion. The exclusivist religious practices of the Jews, and their opposition to abandoning their own customs in favour of those of Rome, even after being conquered and repeatedly suppressed, evoked the suspicion of the Romans.


title: Roman people

text: The founding of Rome, and the history of the city and its people throughout its first few centuries, is steeped in myth and uncertainty. The traditional date for Rome's foundation, 753 BC, and the traditional date for the foundation of the Roman Republic, 509 BC, though commonly used even in modern historiography, are uncertain and mythical. The myths surrounding Rome's foundation combined, if not confused, several different stories, going from the origins of the Latin people under a king by the name Latinus, to Evander of Pallantium, who was said to have brought Greek culture to Italy, and a myth of Trojan origin through the heroic figure Aeneas. The actual mythical founder of the city itself, Romulus, only appears many generations into the complex web of foundation myths. Interpretations of these myths varied among authors in Antiquity, but most agreed that their civilisation had been founded by a mixture of migrants and fugitives. These origin narratives would favour the later extensive integrations of foreigners into the Roman world.


title: Roman people

text: The origins of the people that became the first Romans are clearer. As in neighbouring city-states, the early Romans were composed mainly of Latin-speaking Italic people, known as the Latins. The Latins were a people with a marked Mediterranean character, related to other neighbouring Italic peoples such as the Falisci. The early Romans were part of the Latin homeland, known as Latium, and were Latins themselves. By the time of the 6th century, the inhabitants of Rome had conquered and destroyed all the other Latin settlements and communities such as Antemnae and Collatia and defeated the hegemony of the settlement of Alba Longa, which had previously united the Latin people under its leadership, a position that now belonged to Rome.


title: Roman people

text: From the middle of the 4th century onwards, Rome won a series of victories which saw them rise to rule all of Italy south of the Po river by 270 BC. Following the conquest of Italy, the Romans waged war against the great powers of their time; Carthage to the south and west and the various Hellenistic kingdoms to the east, and by the middle of the second century BC, all rivals had been defeated and Rome became recognised by other countries as the definite masters of the Mediterranean.' By the late 3rd century BC, about a third of the people in Italy south of the Po river had been made Roman citizens, meaning that they were liable for military service, and the rest had been made into allies, frequently called on to join Roman wars.' These allies were eventually made Roman citizens as well after refusal by the Roman government to make them so was met with the Social War, after which Roman citizenship was extended to all the people south of the Po river.' In 49 BC, citizenship rights were also extended to the people of Cisalpine Gaul by Julius Caesar.' The number of Romans would rapidly increase in later centuries through further extensions of citizenship.' Typically, there were five different mechanisms for acquiring Roman citizenship: serving in the Roman army, holding office in cities with the Latin right, being granted it directly by the government, being part of a community that was granted citizenship as a "block grant" or, as a slave, being freed by a Roman citizen.' Just as it could be gained, Roman status could also be lost, for instance through engaging practices considered corrupt or by being carried off into captivity in enemy raids (though one could again become a Roman upon returning from captivity).


title: Roman people

text: In the early Roman Empire, the population was composed of several groups of distinct legal standing, including the Roman citizens themselves ("cives romani"), the provincials ("provinciales"), foreigners ("peregrini") and free non-citizens such as freedmen (freed slaves) and slaves. Roman citizens were subject to the Roman legal system while provincials were subject to whatever laws and legal systems had been in place in their area at the time it was annexed by the Romans. Over time, Roman citizenship was gradually extended more and more and there was a regular "siphoning" of people from less privileged legal groups to more privileged groups, increasing the total percentage of subjects recognised as Romans though the incorporation of the "provinciales" and "peregrini". The capability of the Roman Empire to integrate foreign peoples was one of the key elements that ensured its success. In antiquity, it was significantly easier as a foreigner to become a Roman than it was to become a member or citizen of any other contemporary state. This aspect of the Roman state was seen as important even by some of the emperors. For instance, Emperor Claudius (41–54) pointed it out when questioned by the senate on admitting Gauls to join the senate:


title: Roman people

text: From the Principate (27 BC – AD 284) onwards, barbarians settled and integrated into the Roman world. Such settlers would have been granted certain legal rights simply by being within Roman territory, becoming "provinciales" and thus being eligible to serve as "auxilia" (auxiliary soldiers), which in turn made them eligible to become full "cives Romani". Through this relatively rapid process, thousands of former barbarians could quickly become Romans. This tradition of straightforward integration eventually culminated in the Antonine Constitution, issued by Emperor Caracalla in 212, in which all free inhabitants of Empire were granted the citizenship.' Caracalla's grant contributed to a vast increase in the number of people with the "nomen" (name indicating familial association) "Aurelius". By the time of the Antonine Constitution, many people throughout the provinces already considered themselves (and were considered by others) as Romans. Through the centuries of Roman expansion, large numbers of veterans and opportunists had settled in the provinces and colonies founded by Julius Caesar and Augustus alone saw between 500,000 and a million people from Italy settled in Rome's provinces. In AD 14, four to seven percent of the free people in the provinces of the empire were already Roman citizens.' In addition to colonists, many provincials had also become citizens through grants by emperors and through other methods.


title: Roman people

text: In most cases, it is not clear to what extent the majority of the new Roman citizens regarded themselves as being Roman, or to what extent they were regarded as such by others. For some provincials under Roman rule, the only experience with "Romans" prior to themselves being granted citizenship was through Rome's at times coercive tax-collection system or its army, aspects which were not assimilative in terms of forming an empire-spanning collective identity.' Caracalla's grant marked a radical change in imperial policy towards the provincials.' It is possible that decades, and in many cases centuries, of Romanization through Rome's cultural influence had already begun the evolution of a "national" Roman identity before 212 and that the grant only made the ongoing process legal,' but the grant might also have served as the important prerequisite for a later nearly all-encompassing collective Roman identity. According to the British jurist Tony Honoré, the grant "gave many millions, perhaps a majority of the empire's inhabitants […] a new consciousness of being Roman".' It is likely that local identities survived after Caracalla's grant and remained prominent throughout the empire, but that self-identification as Roman provided a larger sense of common identity and became important when dealing with and distinguishing oneself from non-Romans, such as barbarian settlers and invaders.


title: Roman people

text: In many cases, ancient Romans associated the same things with their identity as historians do today: the rich ancient Latin literature, the impressive Roman architecture, the common marble statues, the variety of cult sites, the Roman infrastructure and legal tradition, as well as the almost corporate identity of the Roman army were all cultural and symbolic ways to express Roman identity. Although there was a more or less unifying Roman identity, Roman culture in classical times was also far from homogeneous. There was a common cultural idiom, large portions of which was based in earlier Hellenistic culture, but Rome's strength also laid in its flexibility and its ability to incorporate traditions from other cultures. For instance, the religions of many conquered peoples were embraced through amalgamations of the gods of foreign pantheons with those of the Roman pantheon. In Egypt, Roman emperors were seen as the successors of the pharaohs (in modern historiography termed the Roman pharaohs) and were depicted as such in artwork and in temples. Many cults from the eastern Mediterranean and beyond spread to Western Europe over the course of Roman rule.


title: Roman people

text: Once the very core of ancient Romanness, the city of Rome gradually lost its exceptional status within the empire in late antiquity.' By the end of the third century, the city's importance was almost entirely ideological, and several emperors and usurpers had begun reigning from other cities closer to the imperial frontier. Rome's loss of status was also reflected in the perceptions of the city by the Roman populace. In the writings of the 4th-century Greek-speaking Roman soldier and author Ammianus Marcellinus, Rome is described almost like a foreign city, with disparaging comments on its corruption and impurity.' Few Romans in late antiquity embodied all aspects of traditional Romanness. Many of them would have come from remote or less prestigious provinces and practiced religions and cults unheard of in Rome itself. Many of them would also have spoken 'barbarian languages' or Greek instead of Latin.' Few inscriptions from late antiquity explicitly identify individuals as 'Roman citizens' or 'Romans'. Before the Antonine Constitution, being a Roman had been a mark of distinction and often stressed, but after the 3rd century Roman status went without saying. This silence does not mean that Romanness no longer mattered in the late Roman Empire, but rather that it had become less distinctive than other more specific marks of identity (such as local identities) and only needed to be stressed or highlighted if a person had recently become a Roman, or if the Roman status of a person was in doubt.' The prevalent view of the Romans themselves was that the "populus Romanus", or Roman people, were a "people by constitution", as opposed to the barbarian peoples who were "gentes", "peoples by descent" (i. e. ethnicities).


title: Roman people

text: Given that Romanness had become near-universal within the empire, local identities became more and more prominent. In the late Roman Empire, one could identify as a Roman as a citizen of the empire, as a person originating from one of the major regions (Africa, Britannia, Gaul, Hispania etc.) or as originating from a specific province or city. Though the Romans themselves did not see them as equivalent concepts, there is no fundamental difference between such Roman sub-identities and the "gens" identities ascribed to barbarians.' In some cases, Roman authors ascribed different qualities to citizens of different parts of the empire, such as Ammianus Marcellinus who wrote of the differences between 'Gauls' and 'Italians'.' In the late Roman army, there were regiments named after Roman sub-identities, such as 'Celts' and 'Batavians', as well as regiments named after barbarian "gentes", such as the Franks or Saxons.


title: Roman people

text: The Roman army underwent considerable changes in the 4th century, experiencing what some have called 'barbarisation',' traditionally understood as the result of recruitments of large amounts of barbarian soldiers.' Though barbarian origins were seldom forgotten, the large scale and meritocratic nature of the Roman army made it relatively easy for "barbarian" recruits to enter the army and rise through the ranks only thougth their skills and achievements. It is not clear to what extent there was actual non-Roman influence on the military; it is plausible that extensive numbers of barbarians were made part of the normal Roman military but it is equally plausible that there was also, or instead, a certain 'barbarian chic' in the army, comparable to the 19th-century French Zouaves (French military units in North Africa who adopted native clothing and cultural practices).' The rise of non-Roman customs in the Roman military might not have resulted from increasing numbers of barbarian recruits, but rather from Roman military units along the imperial borders forming their own distinctive identities.' In the late empire, the term "barbarian" was sometimes used in a general sense by Romans not in the military for Roman soldiers stationed alongside the imperial border, in reference to their perceived aggressive nature. No matter the reason, the Roman military increasingly came to embody 'barbarian' aspects that in previous times had been considered antithetical to the Roman ideal."" Such aspects included emphasising strength and thirst for battle, as well as the assumption of "barbarian" strategies and customs, such as the "barritus" (a formerly Germanic battle cry), the "Schilderhebung" (raising an elected emperor up on a shield) as well as Germanic battle formations. The assumption of these customs might instead of barbarisation be attributable to the Roman army simply adopting customs it found useful, a common practice. Some barbarian soldiers recruited into the Roman army proudly embraced Roman identification and in some cases, the barbarian heritage of certain late Roman individuals was even completely ignored in the wider Roman world.


title: Roman people

text: Religion had always been an important marker of Romanness. As Christianity gradually became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire through late antiquity, and eventually became the only legal faith, the Christianised Roman aristocracy had to redefine their Roman identity in Christian terms. The rise of Christianity did not go unnoticed or unchallenged by the conservative elements of the pagan Roman elite, who became aware that power was slipping from their hands. Many of them, pressured by the increasingly anti-pagan and militant Christians, turned to emphasising that they were the only 'true Romans' as they preserved the traditional Roman religion and literary culture.' According to the Roman statesman and orator Quintus Aurelius Symmachus ( 345–402), true Romans were those who followed the traditional Roman way of life, including its ancient religions, and it was adherence to those religions that in the end would protect the empire from its enemies, as in previous centuries. Per Symmachus and his supporters, Romanness had nothing to do with Christianity, but depended on Rome's pagan past and its status as the heart of a vast and polytheistic empire.' The ideas of Symmachus were not popular among the Christians. Some church leaders, such as Ambrose, the Archbishop of Mediolanum, launched formal and vicious assaults on paganism and those members of the elite which defended it. Like Symmachus, Ambrose saw Rome as the greatest city of the Roman Empire, but not because of its pagan past but because of its Christian present. Throughout late antiquity, Romanness became increasingly defined by Christian faith, which would eventually become the standard.' The status of Christianity was much increased through the adoption of the religion by the Roman emperors.' Throughout late antiquity, the emperors and their courts were viewed as the Romans "par excellence".


title: Roman people

text: As the Roman Empire lost, or ceded control of, territories to various barbarian rulers, the status of the Roman citizens in those provinces sometimes came into question. People born as Roman citizens in regions that then came under barbarian control could be subjected to the same prejudice as barbarians were. Over the course of the Roman Empire, men from nearly all of its provinces had come to rule as emperors. As such, Roman identity remained political, rather than ethnic, and open to people of various origins. This nature of Roman identity ensured that there was never a strong consolidation of a 'core identity' of Romans in Italy, but also likely contributed to the long-term endurance and success of the Roman state. The fall of the Western Roman Empire coincided with the first time the Romans actively excluded an influential foreign group within the empire, the barbarian and barbarian-descended generals of the 5th century, from Roman identity and access to the Roman imperial throne.


title: Roman people

text: The Roman Empire's expansion facilitated the spread of Roman identity over a large stretch of territories that had never before had a common identity and never would again. The effects of Roman rule on the personal identities of the empire's subjects was considerable and the resulting Roman identity outlasted actual imperial control by several centuries.


title: Roman people

text: From the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century to the wars of Emperor Justinian I in the 6th century, the predominant structure of societies in the west was a near-completely barbarian military but also a near-completely Roman civil administration and aristocracy. The new Barbarian rulers took steps to present themselves as legitimate rulers within the Roman framework, with the pretense of legitimacy being especially strong among the rulers of Italy. The early kings of Italy, first Odoacer and then Theoderic the Great, were legally and ostensibly viceroys of the eastern emperor and thus integrated into the Roman government. Like the western emperors before them, they continued to appoint western consuls, which were accepted in the east and by the other barbarian kings. The imperial court in the east extended various honours to powerful barbarian rulers in the west, which was interpreted by the barbarians as enhancing their legitimacy; something they used to justify territorial expansion. In the early 6th century, Clovis I of the Franks and Theoderic the Great of the Ostrogoths nearly went to war with each other, a conflict that could have resulted in the re-establishment of the western empire under either king. Concerned about such a prospect, the eastern court never again extended similar honours to western rulers, instead beginning to emphasise its own exclusive Roman legitimacy, which it would continue to do for the rest of its history.


title: Roman people

text: Culturally and legally, Roman identity remained prominent in the west for centuries, still providing a sense of unity throughout the Mediterranean. Italy's Ostrogothic Kingdom preserved the Roman Senate, which often dominated politics in Rome, illustrating the survival of and continued respect for Roman institutions and identity. The barbarian kings continued to use Roman law throughout the early Middle Ages, often issuing their own law collections. In 6th-century law collections issued by the Visigoths in Spain and the Franks in Gaul, it is clear that there were still large populations identifying as Romans in these regions given that the law collections distinguish between barbarians who live by their own laws and Romans who live by Roman law. Even after Italy was conquered by the Lombards in the late 6th century, the continued administration and urbanisation of northern Italy attest to a continued survival of Roman institutions and values. It was still possible for non-citizens (such as barbarians) in the west to become Roman citizens well into the 7th and 8th centuries; several surviving Visigothic and Frankish documents explain the benefits of becoming a Roman citizen and there are records of rulers and nobles freeing slaves and making them into citizens. Despite this, Roman identity was in a steep decline by the 7th and 8th centuries.


title: Roman people

text: The great turning point in the history of the latter-day Romans of the west was the wars of Justinian I (533–555), aimed at reconquering the lost provinces of the Western Roman Empire. During Justinian's early reign, eastern authors re-wrote 5th-century history to portray the west as "lost" to barbarian invasions, rather than attempting to further integrate the barbarian rulers into the Roman world. By the end of the Justinianic wars, imperial control had returned to northern Africa and Italy, but the wars being founded on the idea that anything outside of the eastern empire's direct control was no longer part of the Roman Empire meant that there could no longer be any doubt that the lands beyond the imperial frontier were no longer Roman and instead remained "lost to barbarians". As a result, Roman identity in the still barbarian-ruled regions (i.e. Gaul, Spain and Britain) declined dramatically. During the reconquest of Italy, the Roman Senate disappeared and most of its members moved to Constantinople. Though the senate achieved a certain legacy in the west, the end of the institution removed a group that had always set the standard of what Romanness was supposed to mean. The war in Italy also divided the Roman elite there between those who enjoyed barbarian rule and those who supported the empire and later withdrew to imperial territory, meaning that Roman identity ceased to provide a sense of social and political cohesion.


title: Roman people

text: The division of Western Europe into multiple different kingdoms accelerated the disappearance of Roman identity, as the previously unifying identity was replaced by local identities based on the region one was from. The fading connectivitiy also meant that while largely Roman law and culture continued on, the language became increasingly fragmented and split, Latin gradually developing into what would become the modern Romance languages.' Where they had once been the majority of the population, the Romans of Gaul and Hispania gradually and quietly faded away as their descendants adopted other names and identities. In Sub-Roman Britain, the people of the large urban centers clinged to Roman identity, but rural populations integrated and assimilated with Germanic colonisers (the Jutes, Angles and Saxons). Once the large cities declined, Roman identity faded away in Britain as well.'


title: Roman people

text: The adoption of local identities in Gaul and Hispania was made more attractive in that they were not binary opposed to the identity of the barbarian rulers in the same way that 'Roman' was; for instance, one could not be both Roman and Frankish, but it was possible to, for instance, be both Arvernian (i.e. from Auvergne) and Frankish. In Hispania, "Gothic" transitioned from simply an ethnic identity to being both an ethnic one (in the sense of descent from Goths) and a political one (in the sense of allegiance to the king). Gothic becoming more fluid and multi-dimensional as an identity facilitated a smooth transition from people identifying as Romans to people identifying as Goths. There were few differences between the Goths and the Romans of Hispania at this point; the Visigoths no longer practised Arian Christianity and Romans, just like the Goths, were from the 6th century onwards allowed to serve in the military. Though Roman identity was rapidly disappearing, the Visigothic Kingdom in the 6th and 7th centuries thus also produced several prominent latter-day Roman generals, such as and Paulus.


title: Roman people

text: The disappearance of the Romans is reflected in the barbarian law collections. In the Salic law of Clovis I (from around 500), the Romans and the Franks are the two major parallel populations of the kingdom and both have well-defined legal statuses. A century later in the "Lex Ripuaria", the Romans are just one of many smaller semi-free populations, restricted in their legal capacity, with many of their former advantages now associated with Frankish identity. Such legal arrangements would have been unthinkable under the Roman Empire and under the early decades of barbarian rule. By Charlemagne's imperial coronation in 800, Roman identity largely disappeared in Western Europe and fell to low social status. The situation was somewhat paradoxical: living Romans, in Rome and elsewhere, had a poor reputation, with records of anti-Roman attacks and the use of 'Roman' as an insult, but the name of Rome was also used a source of great and unfailing political power and prestige, employed by many aristocratic families (sometimes proudly proclaiming invented Roman origins) and rulers throughout history. Through suppressing Roman identity in the lands they ruled and discounting the remaining empire in the east as "Greek", the Frankish state hoped to avoid the possibility of the Roman people proclaiming a Roman emperor in the same way that the Franks proclaimed a Frankish king.


title: Roman people

text: The population of the city of Rome continued to identify, and be identified, as Romans by westerners. Although Rome's history was not forgotten, the city's importance in the Middle Ages primarily stemmed from it being the seat of the pope, a view shared by both westerners and the eastern empire.' During the centuries following Justinian's reconquest, when the city was still under imperial control, the population was not specially administered and did not not have any political participation in wider imperial affairs.' When clashing with the emperors, the popes sometimes employed the fact that they had the backing of the "populus Romanus" ("people of Rome") as a legitimising factor, meaning that the city still endured some ideological importance in terms of Romanness. Western European authors and intellectuals increasingly associated Romanness only with the city itself. By the second half of the 8th century, westerners almost exclusively used the term to refer to the population of the city.' When the temporal power of the papacy was established through the foundation of the Papal States in the 8th century, the popes used the fact that they were accompanied and supported by the "populus Romanus" as something that legitimised their sovereignty.'


title: Roman people

text: The Roman populace considered neither the eastern empire nor Charlemagne's new "Holy Roman Empire" to be properly Roman. Though the continuity from Rome to Constantinople was accepted in the west, surviving sources point to the easterners being seen as Greeks who had abandoned Rome and Roman identity. The Carolingian kings on the other hand were seen as having more to do with the Lombard kings of Italy than the ancient Roman emperors. The medieval Romans also often equated the Franks with the ancient Gauls, and viewed them as aggressive, insolent and vain. Despite this, the Holy Roman emperors were recognised by the citizens of Rome as true Roman emperors, albeit only because of their support and coronation by the popes.


title: Roman people

text: The Franks and other westerners did not view the population of Rome favourably either. Foreign sources are generally hostile, ascribing traits such as unrest and deceit to the Romans and describing them as "as proud as they are helpless". Anti-Roman sentiment lasted throughout the Middle Ages. The Romans partly owed their bad reputation to sometimes trying to take an independent position towards the popes of the Holy Roman emperors. Given that these rulers were seen as having universal power, the Romans were considered intruders in affairs that exceeded their competence.


title: Roman people

text: Unlike the other kingdoms, the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa did not maintain a pretense of loyalty to the Roman Empire. Since the term 'Roman' was seen as implying political loyalty to the empire, it was regarded by the Vandal government as politically loaded and suspicious. As a consequence, the Roman population of the kingdom rarely self-identified as such, though important markers of Romanness, such as Roman naming customs, adherence to Nicene Christianity as well as the Latin-language literary tradition, survived throughout the kingdom's existence. Despite objections to 'Roman' as a term for the populace, the Vandals partly appealed to Roman legitimacy to legitimise themselves as rulers, given that the Vandal kings had marriage connections to the imperial Theodosian dynasty. However, the Vandal state more strongly worked to legitimise itself through appealing to the pre-Roman cultural elements of the region, particularly the Carthaginian Empire. Some symbols of the ancient state were revived and the city of Carthage, capital of the kingdom, was heavily emphasised in poetry, on coinage and in the creation of a new "Carthaginian calendar". Coins minted by the Vandals were inscribed with "Felix Karthago" ("fortunate Carthage") and "Carthagine Perpetua" ("Carthage eternal").


title: Roman people

text: The Vandalic promotion of independent African symbols had a profound effect on the formerly Roman populace of their kingdom. By the time the soldiers of the eastern empire landed in Africa during Justinian's Vandalic War, the Romance people of North Africa had ceased to identify as Romans, instead preferring either Libyans ("Libicus") or Punic people ("Punicus"). Contemporary eastern authors also described them as Libyans (Λίβυες). During the Vandal Kingdom's brief existence, the Vandal ruling class had culturally and ethnically merged with the Romano-Africans. By the time the kingdom fell, the only real cultural differences between the "Libyans" and "Vandals" were that Vandals adhered to Arian Christianity and were permitted to serve in the army. After North Africa was reincorporated into the empire, the eastern Roman government deported the Vandals from the region, which shortly thereafter led to disappearance of the Vandals as a distinct group. The only individuals recorded to have been deported were soldiers; given that the wives and children of the "Vandals" thus remained in North Africa, the name at this stage appears to mainly have denoted the soldier class.


title: Roman people

text: Despite North Africa's reincorporation into the empire, the distinction between "Libyans" and "Romans" (i.e. the inhabitants of the eastern empire) was maintained by both groups. Per the writings of the 6th-century eastern historian Procopius, the Libyans were descended from Romans, ruled by the Romans, and served in the Roman army, but their Romanness had diverged too much from that of the populace of the empire as a result of the century of Vandal rule. Imperial policy reflected the view that the North Africans were no longer Romans. Whereas governors in the eastern provinces were often native to their respective provinces, the military and administrative staff in North Africa was almost entirely constituted by easterners. The imperial government distrusting the locals was hardly surprising given that imperial troops had been harassed by local (formerly Roman) peasants during the Vandalic War, supportive of the Vandal regime, and that there had been several rebels thereafter, such as Guntarith and Stotzas, who sought to restore an independent kingdom. The distinction between the Romans and the Romance people of North Africa is also reflected in foreign sources, and the two populations appear to not yet have been reconciled by the time the African provinces fell during the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb and Roman rule was terminated.


title: Roman people

text: Eastern Mediterranean populations, which remained under Eastern Roman (or "Byzantine") control after the 5th century, retained "Roman" as their predominant identity;' the majority of the population saw themselves as being Roman beyond any doubt and their emperor as ruling from the cultural and religious center of the Roman Empire: Constantinople, the New Rome.' In the centuries when the Byzantine Empire was still a vast Mediterranean-spanning state, Roman identity was more strong in the imperial heartlands than on the peripheries, though it was also strongly embraced in the peripheral regions in times of uncertainty. As in earlier centuries, the Romans of the early Byzantine Empire were considered a people united by being subjects of the Roman state, rather than a people united through sharing ethnic descent (i.e. "gens" like those ascribed to different barbarian groups). The term extended to all Christian citizens of the empire, in a general sense referring to those who followed Chalcedonian Christianity and were loyal to the emperor.


title: Roman people

text: In Byzantine writings up until at least the 12th century, the idea of the Roman "homeland" consistently referred not to Greece or Italy, but to the entire old Roman world. Despite this, the Romans of Byzantium were also aware that their present empire was no longer as powerful as it once had been, and that centuries of warfare and strife had left the Roman Empire reduced in territory and somewhat humbled.


title: Roman people

text: Given that the rulers of the Byzantine Empire were predominantly Hellenic, and the percentage of the population that was Hellenic became greater as the empire's borders were increasingly reduced, Western Europeans, from as early as the 6th century onwards, often referred to it as a Greek empire, inhabited by Greeks. To the early Byzantines themselves, up until the 11th century or so, terms such as "Greeks" and "Hellenes" were seen as offensive, as it downplayed their Roman nature and furthermore associated them with the ancient Pagan Greeks rather than the more recent Christian Romans. The westerners were not unaware of Byzantium's Romanness; when not wishing to distance themselves from the eastern empire, the term "Romani" was frequently used for soldiers and subjects of the eastern emperors.' From the 6th to 8th century, western authors also sometimes employed terms such as "res publica" or "sancta res publica" for the Byzantine Empire, still identifying it with the old Roman Republic. Such references ceased as Byzantine control of Italy and Rome itself crumbled and the Papacy began to use the term for their own, much more regional, domain and sphere of influence.'


title: Roman people

text: As the Byzantine Empire lost its territories in Egypt, the Levant and Italy, the Christians who lived in those regions ceased to be recognised by the Byzantine government as Romans,' much in the same vein as had happened with the North Africans under Vandal rule. The decrease in the diversity of peoples recognised as being Roman meant that the term Roman increasingly came to be applied only to the now dominant Hellenic population of the remaining territories, rather than to all imperial citizens.' As the Hellenic populace were united by following Orthodox Christianity, spoke the same Greek language, and believed that they shared a common ethnic origin, "Roman" ("Rhōmaîoi" in Greek)' thus gradually transformed into an ethnic identity. By the late 7th century, Greek, rather than Latin, had begun being referred to in the east as the "rhomaisti" (Roman way of speaking).' In chronicles written in the 10th century, the "Rhōmaîoi" begin to appear as just one of the ethnicities in the empire (alongside, for instance, Armenians) and by the late 11th century, there are references in historical writings to people as being ""Rhōmaîos" by birth", signalling the completion of the transformation of "Roman" into an ethnic description. At this point, "Roman" also began being used for Greek populations outside of the imperial borders, such as to the Greek-speaking Christians under Seljuk rule in Anatolia, who were referred to as "Rhōmaîoi" despite actively resisting attempts at re-integration by the Byzantine emperors. Only a handful of late sources retain the old view of a Roman being a citizen of the Roman world.


title: Roman people

text: The capture of Constantinople by the non-Roman Latin crusaders of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 ended the unbroken Roman continuity from Rome to Constantinople. In order to legitimise themselve as Romans in the decades when they no longer controlled Constantinople, the Byzantine elite began to look to other markers of what Romans were. The elites of the Empire of Nicaea, the Byzantine government-in-exile, chiefly looked to Greek cultural heritage and Orthodox Christianity, connecting the contemporary Romans to the ancient Greeks. This contributed to Romanness becoming even more increasingly associated with people who were ethno-culturally Hellenic. Under the Nicene emperors John III (1222–1254) and Theodore II (1254–1258), these ideas were taken further than ever before as they explicitly stated that the present "Rhōmaîoi" were "Hellenes", descendants of the Ancient Greeks.' Though they saw themselves as Hellenic, the Nicene emperors also maintained that they were the only true Roman emperors. "Roman" and "Hellenic" were not viewed as opposing terms, but building blocks of the same double-identity.' During the rule of the Palaiologos dynasty, from the recapture of Constantinople in 1261 to the fall of the empire in 1453, "Hellene" lost ground as a self-identity, with few known uses of the term, and "Rhōmaîoi" once again became the dominant term used for self-description. Some Byzantine authors went as far as to return to using "Hellenic" and "Greek" solely as terms for the ancient pagan Greeks.


title: Roman people

text: "Rhōmaîoi" survived the fall of the Byzantine Empire as the primary self-designation of the Christian Greek inhabitants of the new Turkish Ottoman Empire. The popular historical memory of these Romans was not occupied with the glorious past of the Roman Empire of old or the Hellenism in the Byzantine Empire, but focused on legends of the fall and the loss of their Christian homeland and Constantinople. One such narrative was the myth that the last emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos would one day return from the dead to reconquer the city, a myth that endured in Greek folklore up until the time of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) and beyond.


title: Roman people

text: In the early modern period, many Ottoman Turks, especially those who lived in the cities and were not part of the military or administration, also self-identified as Romans ("Rūmī", رومى), as inhabitants of former Byzantine territory.' The term "Rūmī" had originally been used by Muslims for Christians in general, though later became restricted to just the Byzantines.' After 1453, the term was not only sometimes a Turkish self-identification, but it was also used to refer to Ottoman Turks by other Islamic states and peoples.' The identification of the Ottomans with the Romans was also made outside of the Islamic world. 16th-century Portuguese sources refer to the Ottomans they battled in the Indian Ocean as "rumes"' and the Chinese Ming dynasty referred to the Ottomans as "Lumi" (魯迷), a transliteration of "Rūmī", and to Constantinople as "Lumi cheng" (魯迷城, "Lumi city").' As applied to Ottoman Turks, "Rūmī" began to fall out of use at the end of the 17th century, and instead the word increasingly became associated only with the Greek population of the empire, a meaning that it still bears in Turkey today.'


title: Roman people

text: As applied to the Greeks, the self-identity as Romans endured longer, and for a long time there was widespread hope that the Romans would be liberated and that their empire would be restored. By the time of the Greek War of Independence, the dominant self-identity of the Greeks was still "Rhōmaîoi" or "Romioi".


title: Roman people

text: The citizens of the city of Rome, though identifying nationally and ethnically as Italians, continue to identify with the demonym 'Roman' to this day. Rome is the most populous city in Italy with the city proper being home to about 2.8 million citizens and the Rome metropolitan area to over four million people.' Since the collapse of Roman political dominion, governments inspired by the ancient Roman Republic have been revived in the city four times. The earliest such government was the Commune of Rome in the 12th century, founded as opposition towards the temporal powers of the Pope, which was followed by the government of Cola di Rienzo, who used the titles of 'tribune' and 'senator', in the 14th century, a sister republic to revolutionary France in the 18th century, which restored the office of Roman consul, and finally as the short-lived Roman Republic in 1849, with a government based on the triumvirates of ancient Rome.'