1. Roman empire dominion included, but did not limit to what we now refer to as Western Europe...
2... of whose languages are either mostly descended from, or heavily influenced by Latin...
3. ... And where the dominant religion is still the Roman state religion. Which was lorded over by the Roman state church for a thousand years before an angry German monk suggested that this was really weird and could we keep the book and get rid of the pope.
So, when you say Western Europe is not Rome, you need to say how it isn't, since there are quite a few things that link this geographic area culturally very strongly to that ancient empire.
To be fair, they said Rome is not Western Europe, which is true. Rome didn’t have cultural affinity with Western Europeans. Rome’s cultural affinity flowed to the east with the Greeks et al.
Romans culturally ate less meat and frowned upon their Northern Germanic Tribes who almost always ate meat. They were more frugal in their way of life.
The Germanic Tribes were also taller and were acknowledged by Romans as formidable warrior.
Culturally tho, Romans were South Europeans and assimilated what we call South Italy and Greece now.
They also captured parts of middle east but culturally they never became Romans.
>3. ... And where the dominant religion is still the Roman state religion. Which was lorded over by the Roman state church for a thousand years before an angry German monk suggested that this was really weird and could we keep the book and get rid of the pope.
There were other Pagan religions at the time and in middle east Jews didn't accept Roman state religion.
But then again, people born in Roman Empire got Roman citizenship on Birth so it didn't matter what you were culturally or religiously or tribe/ethnicity.
> But then again, people born in Roman Empire got Roman citizenship on Birth
That depends on when you're talking about. Until Caracalla made all free subjects citizens in 212 AD (supposedly so that he could tax them more heavily),[1] Roman citizenship was restricted and highly coveted.
> There were other Pagan religions at the time and in middle east Jews didn't accept Roman state religion.
From the late 300s onwards, pagans were persecuted in the Roman Empire. Nicene Christianity was the state religion. Also, Jews lived throughout the empire, not just in the Middle East. From about the 1st century AD onwards, there were more Jews living outside of the land of Israel than within it.
For the period being described, the Roman Empire did not include Western Europe, they did not speak Latin nor did they view the Papacy as the head of their religion. Yet they were still the Roman Empire. That's why Western Europe is not Rome.
1. Roman empire dominion included, but did not limit to what we now refer to as Western Europe...
2... of whose languages are either mostly descended from, or heavily influenced by Latin...
3. ... And where the dominant religion is still the Roman state religion. Which was lorded over by the Roman state church for a thousand years before an angry German monk suggested that this was really weird and could we keep the book and get rid of the pope.
So, when you say Western Europe is not Rome, you need to say how it isn't, since there are quite a few things that link this geographic area culturally very strongly to that ancient empire.