`  ::Housfrau, let's get some things clear, because you mix up terms and concepts without understanding the distinctions between them. In the middle Byzantine period, ``Hellenes`` does not mean ``Greeks``. It is used to mean ``pagans``. ``Helladikoi`` does not mean ``Greeks`` either, but the inhabitants of the theme of Hellas (as the DAI uses the term). ``Hellas`` of course means ``Greece``, and was the original core of the Greek world, but it does not imply that Greeks lived only there. Since Classical and Hellenistic times, the Greek world was much wider than the original core Greece/Hellas. There was no ethnonym specifically referring to ``Greeks`` as such in Byzantine times (at least not in the timeframe we are interested in). You say that ``Only the language was Greek, but this is all``, well yes, except that language is one of the major markers of ethnicity. This does not mean that a ``Romaios`` was a descendant of Themistocles; just as it does not mean that I am a descendant of Alexander because I am speaking Greek. Ethnic identity is mostly a matter of belief and culture. All Byzantines were ``Romans``, ``Romaioi``, and in its most ``typical`` sense that term means a Christian, Greek-speaking and culturally hellenized Byzantine subject. That is what the ``Byzantine Greeks`` article refers to, and that is pretty much what the brothers were. If you had read the Byzantine Greeks article, we wouldn't need to have this conversation.    `