‘byzantine’ as we all know is not a true descriptor, but instead a label used ex post facto by mediaeval scholars for the eastern half of the roman empire for the period after the mother city fell; now the people of the byzantine empire would not have understood the concept of ‘byzantine’ but instead always thought of themselves as roman, calling themselves rhomaioi; but you’ll notice that the word rhomaioi is not a latin term but greek; the byzantines were essentially romanised greeks; therefore i suggest we use a new, more accurate nomenclature: greek + roman = groman; the groman empire; now i know what you’re thinking, you’re reminded of vladimir groman, the menshevik economist who advised the soviet economic planning agency in the 1920s; now this is interesting because after the fall of constantinople to the turks in 1453, the centre of power within the orthodox church shifted to moscow, which although lying hundreds of miles beyond the furthest extent of the roman empire began to think of itself as the third rome; this conception first came from the writings of an obscure hegumen called filofei of pskov in the 16th century; pskov is interesting because before it was russian it was a key outpost of the hanseatic league, which of course was itself named after hansa — an old high german word meaning ‘band’, referring to the groups of german merchants whose activities across northern europe first led to the establishment of the league; now it’s interesting that their name for themselves should translate as ‘band’, because forged in perhaps the greatest of the hanseatic cities, hamburg, was perhaps the greatest rock band of all time, the beatles; the beatles of course heralded from liverpool, a city flanking the mersey river, a brown torrent in the northwest of england whose name derives from its one-time role as the limit of the lands held by the anglo-saxon kingdom of mercia; even more pertinent is the fact that out of the river in 1987 was dug coins from the groman empire; they depict justinian i, perhaps the greatest of all groman emperors, who lived concurrent to the kingdom of mercia; now I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking this is all getting rather complicated, and to be fair i think you might have a point; in fact this sequence of reasoning is so meandering and complex that i think the only appropriate descriptor for that old empire is byzantine after all