Byzantine ethnic labels for enemies served chauvinism rather than religious accuracy

Evidence

Other Byzantine writers referred to their Turkish enemies as “Persians,""Medes,""Huns,""Chaldeans,” or more generally as “barbarians” —not as much to suggest religious deviance as to inspire Greek chauvinism against the barbaric Orient by evoking the enemies of another age. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 687

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader pattern of how rival groups are labeled as ancient archetypal enemies — echoes how crusading chronicles used biblical enemy names for Muslims.
• SEED: Angle: how reused enemy-names (Persians, Huns, ‘barbarians’) function as a rhetorical technology for mobilizing present hostility by collapsing it into ancient conflicts.