The Empire's native Greek name was, Romanía, or Basileía Romaíon, a direct translation of the Latin name of the Roman Empire, Imperium Romanorum.
This was inspired from the city of Byzantium by German historian H. Wolf about a century after the fall Constantinople. He had taken it from the writing of 15th century Byzantine historian Laonicus Chalcocondyles. He presented a system of Byzantine historiography in his work Corpus Historiae Byzantinae, in order to "distinguish ancient Roman from medieval history without drawing attention to their ancient predecessors".
During much of its history it was known to many of its Western contemporaries as The Empire of the Greeks due to the increasing dominance of its Greek population and distinct culture.
There is not a clear cut division between the Roman and the Byzantine empires and it is not possible to effectually distinguish between the two empires. The Byzantine empire was centered around Constantinople, a city chosen by a Roman emperor. For the Byzantines were the Roman Empire, not simply a continuation of it in the East. The capital city, Constantinople, had been founded as the capital of Rome by the Emperor Constantine, but a uniquely Greek or Byzantine character to the Roman Empire can be distinguished as early as Diocletian. When Rome was seized by Goths, this was a great blow to the Roman Empire, but it didn't effectively end it. Although Rome was under the control of foreigners who themselves claimed to be continuing the empire, the Byzantine empire continued as before, believing themselves to be the Roman Empire.
B Y Z A N T I N E E M P I R E
