Not singling you out, all the articles do it, but: Strange to call this Byzantine. The coins found are from the reign of Constantius II, who at times ruled the whole empire alone (as did his successor Julian). The idea that the East, even when administered separately, was some foreign/"Byzantine"/not-really-Roman "other" was invented much later.
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replyYes, invented much later, but the expression of a different power structure that those types of Romans felt was not present. But to our modern eyes it was. Hell, the mere fact the centre of power was in Constantinople and not Rome is proof enough that they were distinct.
replyProof to your modern eyes. Not to the eyes of those who also called Constantinople "New Rome", and who called themselves Romans even 1000 years later.
replyMany Western polities have sought the title of the Roman Empire and the legitimacy it endows. Constantine split the empire, and Constantius II did not rule over Rome (or many other parts of the empire). Is it even reasonable to assert it was still the Roman Empire after the fracture?
replyIs it legitimate for the Eastern Roman Empire to claim the legacy? I think so, and I think they have among the best arguments for it. Conversely it is also legitimate to note the major differences between the two and the fact that discontinuities do exist.
Sounds like we watched the same Lex interview on Rome...
replyWell, probably Greek-speaking rather than Latin-speaking, right? And with that, would there also be some cultural differences?
replyOne of the articles mentioned inscriptions in Coptic, Latin, and Greek. The elites would have spoken both Greek and Latin, I think? Greek was commonly known and used. Caesar, a Very Latin Roman, as he was being murdered in Rome, is conjectured to have spoken Greek to Brutus, another Very Latin Roman.
replyThe notion that people are mostly monolingual, and that language is very closely tied to a cultural identity, is a modern projection (and far from universally true nowadays as well).