ROME AND ROMANIA,27 BC-1453 AD
ROME AND ROMANIA,Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.William Butler Yeats (1865–1939), "Sailing to Byzantium"
the so-called Byzantine Empires; Princes, Kings, and Tsars of Numidia, Judaea, Bulgaria, Serbia, Wallachia, & Moldavia; and the Sultâns of Rûm
Rome casts a long shadow. I am writing in the Latin alphabet. I am using the Roman calendar, 
with its names of the months. I use Roman names for the planets in the sky, which also get applied to the days of the week. Sentences I write contain borrowed Latin words with some frequency [e.g. sententia, continêre, Latinus, frequentia, for example -- exempli gratia]. Nietzsche said, "The Romans were indeed the strong and noble, just as those stronger and nobler hitherto on earth never existed, never themselves would have been dreamt" [Zur Genealogie der Moral, Reclam, 1988, p.42; see discussion of this translation]. But this is just the problem. What Nietzsche admired was unapologetic power, conquest, and domination. This no longer seems so admirable, and the Empire founded by Julius Caesar and Augustus, as a form of government, does not look like an advance in the course of human progress. Even to Machiavelli, the despotism of Caesar was a grave retrogression in comparison to the Roman Republic. While a thoughtful Emperor, like Marcus Aurelius, expressed ideals adopted from Stoic cosmopolitanism, the unity and universality of Rome soon expressed itself as the unity and universality of a state religion, Christianity, whose intrinsic exclusivism and intolerance became characteristic of the Middle Ages. This is also no longer to be regarded as admirable. Nevertheless, the very success of Rome makes us, like it or not, her heirs, in countless matters great and small (like monogamy, which has no Biblical basis). Indeed, the Romans were rather more successful than is usually thought. The corpus of Roman law, let alone Greek literature, was not preserved at 
Rome, but at Constantinople, Roma Nova. What most people would probably regard as an obscure footnote to Mediaeval history, the Byzantine Empire, was in fact still the Roman Empire, known to Western Europeans, "Latins" or "Franks" at the time, 
as Romania, already the name of the Empire in Late Antiquity. In the Middle Ages, the Greeks used their own word for "Greeks," Hellênes, to mean the ancient pagan Greeks, as the word is used in the New Testament. They were themselves always Romans, Rhômaîoi. The Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204, and then refugees from the fall of the City to the Ottomans in 1453, rather crudely, but effectively, brought the heritage of the Roman East back into the hitherto poorer Mediaeval civilization of the West.
This is getting to be a large text file (276.2K), and with older internet connections it may take a long time to load, especially because of all the maps and genealogical charts, which are large graphic files. There is also an audio file (827.1K), if anyone wants music (the "Dance of the Knights" from the ballet Romeo and Juliet by Sergei Prokofiev -- I think this evokes the ponderous, ominous, and majestic character of the Empire). Despite that overall size, Romania.htm has not been broken up, so as to preserve and emphasize the continuity of the history of Rome and Romania from Augustus all the way to Constantine XI. It is a long story -- Gibbon's version is now published in three large volumes [The Modern Library], and he only began with the Antonines.
Discussion of the period covered by this page, with sources on Roman and "Byzantine" history, upon which the actual tables and genealogies are based, may be found in "Decadence, Rome and Romania, the Emperors Who Weren't, and Other Reflections on Roman History." One Roman source not mentioned there is the handy Who Was Who In The Roman World, edited by Diana Bowder [1980, Washington Square Press, Pocket Books, 1984]. That was the first book I ever saw that organized Roman Emperors into logical dynastic or event centered groups. Another source I have recently enjoyed is Justinian's Flea by William Rosen [Viking, 2007], not the least because it cites this very webpage [note 2:36, p.331]. Otherwise, it is a fine book with a good appeciation of Late Antiquity, and with some details that I have already added here. Other sources are given here at the points where they are used. This page is continued and supplemented by the material in "Successors of Rome: Scotia", "Successors of Rome: Germania", "Successors of Rome: Francia", "Successors of Rome: The Periphery of Francia", "Successors of Rome: Russia", "The Ottoman Sultâns", and "Modern Romania". Related earlier history may be found at "Historical Background to Greek Philosophy" and "Hellenistic Monarchs", and the "Consuls of the Roman Republic".
Note that Greek words and names are not phonetically transliterated but are actually Latinized in both spelling and morphology. Thus, the name that could be transliterated from Greek as "Doukas," is written "Ducas." The epithet of Basil II, "Bulgaroktonos," "Bulgar Slayer," is rendered "Bulgaroctonus." This is contrary to increasing usage but is, as Warren Threadgold says [A History of the Byzantine State and Society, Stanford University Press, 1997, p. xxi], what the Romans would have done themselves when writing in the Latin alphabet. Since the Latin alphabet is used here, and since the Roman Empire originally used Latin as its universal language, never forgotten in Greek Romania, that is the practice here. Exceptions would be for Greek words that simply have Latin translations. Thus, Greek Rhômaioi, "Romans," corresponds to Latin Romani (not "Rhomaeoe"). A kind of exception to this would be when the Greek word is part of a compound. For instance Tsar Kalojan of Bulgaria was called the "Roman Killer," Rhômaioktonos. This would Latinize as Rhomaeoctonus.
The maps are originally those of Tony Belmonte, edited to eliminate references to "Byzantium" and with corrections and additions. Tony's historical atlas (with Tony) disappeared from the Web. It was painstakingly reassembled by Jack Lupic, but then his site has disappeared also. Corrections and additions are based on The Penguin Atlas of Ancient History (Colin McEvedy, 1967), The Penguin Atlas of Medieval History (Colin McEvedy, 1961), The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History (Colin McEvedy, 1992), The Anchor Atlas of World History, Volume I (Hermann Kinder, Werner Hilgemann, Ernest A. Menze, and Harald and Ruth Bukor, 1974), and various prose histories. My graphics programs do not seem to be quite as sophisticated as Tony's, so maps I have modified may not look as professionally done as his originals.
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume I, Modern Library, p.1 The "First Empire" is what often would be considered the entire history of the "Roman Empire." It is definitely the end of the Ancient World. If "Rome" means paganism, bizarre Imperial sex crimes, and the Pax Romana, then this would indeed be it. A later Empire that is Christian, more somberly moralistic, and more beset with war, sounds like a different civilization, which it is, and isn't. That the earlier civilization didn't "fall" but merely became transformed is a truth that both academic and popular opinion still hasn't quite come to terms with. If the decadence of pagan religion and despotic emperors was going to be the cause of the "fall" of Rome, then it certainly should have fallen in the Crisis of the Third Century. That it didn't would seem almost like a disappointment to many. But the greatest of the 3rd century Emperors, like Aurelian, don't get popular books, movies, and BBC television epics made about them. They begin to pass into a kind of historical blind spot. The Pax Romana seems real enough in certain places, but there were not many reigns without some major military action. As long as these were remote from Rome, people would have thought of it as peace. Once Aurelian rebuilt the walls around Rome, things had obviously changed.
Index
I. First Empire, "Rome," 27 BC-284 AD
II. Second Empire, Early "Romania," 284 AD-610 AD
III. Third Empire, Middle "Romania," Early "Byzantium," 610 AD-1059 AD
IV. Fourth Empire, Late "Romania/Byzantium," 1059 AD-1453 AD
V. Fifth Empire, Ottomans, Islamic Byzantium, 1453 AD-1922 AD, 469 years
Sources
I. FIRST EMPIRE, "ROME," 27 BC-284 AD, 310 years
In the second century of the Christian era, the Empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilised portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valour. The gentle but powerful influence of laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the provinces. Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury.... During a happy period (A.D. 98-180) of more than fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines.
| 1. JULIO-CLAUDIANS | |
|---|---|
| Augustus C. (Octavius) Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus | 27 BC-14 AD |
| defeat of Varus by Arminius, destruction of three legions, abandonment of Germany, 9 AD | |
| Tiberius I Ti. Claudius Nero | 14-37 |
| Caligula C. (Julius) Caesar (Germanicus) | 37-41 |
| Claudius I Ti. Claudius Drusus | 41-54 |
| Invasion of Britain, 43 | |
| Nero (L. Domitius Ahenobarbus) Nero Claudius Drusus | 54-68 |
| non-dynastic | |
| Galba Ser. Sulpicius Galba | 68-69 |
| Otho M. Salvius Otho | 69 |
| Vitellius A. Vitellius | 69 |
guilty pleasure, and not-so-guilty pleasure. Whatever these emperors were actually like, this approach began with the Romans themselves, with Suetonius's list of Tiberius's sexual perversions, lovingly reproduced in Bob Guccione's movie Caligula (1979, 1991). Whether Tiberius was really guilty of anything of the sort is anyone's guess, but we don't hear much in the way of such accusations about subsequent Emperors, except for a select few, like Caracalla and Elagabalus. Meanwhile, Augustus had secured the Rhine-Danube frontier, and Claudius conquered most of Britain. Augustus originally wanted an Elbe-Danube frontier, but his forces were caught in a catastrophic ambush and destroyed. The Romans gave up on the Elbe permanently. Only Charlemagne, by the conquest of Saxony, would secure what Augustus had wanted. The shadow of the Republic persisted during this period, as Augustus adapted Republican forms to his own concentration of absolute power, and someone like Claudius could still dream of restoring the Republic. The year 69 pretty much ended these dreams, since the first free-for-all scramble for the throne revealed that the army, and only the army, would determine who would be Emperor. Strangely enough, despite the occasional anarchy, this would be a source of strength for the Empire, since it always did the best with successful soldiers at its head. Unsuccessful soldiers faced the most merciless reality check (whether killed by the enemy or by their own troops); but purely civilian Emperors, like Honorius, could endure one disaster after another without their rule necessarily being endangered.
The office of the Roman Consuls, and dating by them, continues under the Empire until Justinian. They can be examined on a popup page.
The abbreviations used in the full names of the Emperors can be found elsewhere with the discussion of the tria nomina. Emperors are commonly known by particular parts of their names, or by nicknames, e.g. Caligula, "little boot," or Caracalla, "little hood" -- both names given them as children in the army camps of their fathers (Germanicus and Septimius Severus, respectively).
The family of the Julio-Claudians seems like one of the most complicated in history. This chart eliminates 
many people in the family to focus on the descent and relation of the Emperors. Caligula and Nero are descendants of Augustus, through his daughter Julia (from his first marriage); but Claudius and Nero are also descendants of Mark Antony, who of course committed suicide, shortly before Cleopatra, rather than be captured after his defeat by Augustus.
The use of crowns to indicate the emperors is at this point anachronistic, but it is convenient. The crown for Christian Roman Emperors, which of course will not occur until Constantine, is shown with a nimbus, like deified earlier Emperors, because they are always portrayed with halos, like Saints, and are said to be the "Equal of the Apostles."
| 4. KINGS OF NUMIDIA | |
|---|---|
| Masinissa | c.215-149 |
| Gulussa & Mastanabal | 149-c.145 |
| Micipsa | 149-118 |
| Adherbal & Hiempsal I | 118-116 |
| Jugurtha | 118-105 |
| War with Romans, 112-106 | |
| Gauda | 105-? |
| Hiempsal II | c.88-c.50 |
| Juba I | c.50-46 |
| Juba II | c.30 BC-c.22 AD |
| Ptolemy | c.22 AD-40 |
| Roman Province | |
| 5. LEADERS & KINGS OF JUDAEA | |
|---|---|
| Hasmoneans | |
| Judas Maccabaeus | 167-161 |
| Jerusalem Occupied, 164 | |
| Jonathan | 161-143 |
| Simon | 142-135 |
| John Hyrcanus I | 135-105 |
| Aristobulus | 104-103 |
| Alexander Jannaeus | 103-76 |
| Salome Alexandra | 76-67 |
| Aristobulus II | 67-63 |
| Pompey captures Jerusalem, 63 | |
| Hyrcanus II | 63-40 |
| Antigonus | 40-37 |
| Herodians | |
| Herod I the Great | King, 37-4 BC |
| Archelaus | Ethnarch, 4 BC-6 AD |
| Herod II Antipas | Tetrarch, 4 BC-39 AD |
| Philip | Tetrarch, 4 BC-37 AD |
| Herod Agrippa I | King, 37-44 |
| Agrippa II | King, 50/53-100? |
| Jewish Revolt & War, 66-73: Destruction of Jerusalem, 70 AD; Fall of Masada, 73; Revolt of Bar Kokhba, 132-135 | |
The hard won independence of Judaea fell within a century to Rome, which for a time, as elsewhere, tolerated a fiction of local rule -- the Herodian dynasty owed its power entirely to Roman favor. This did not mollify the Messianic hotheads, who inevitably sparked a rebellion that led to the final destruction of the Temple, the end, in a sense, of ancient Judaism, massacres and mass suicides, as at Masada, and the increasing Diaspora of Jews into the Roman world. Out of this also came the story of a peaceful Messiah, who had been executed and resurrected, whose cult eventually overwhelmed Rome itself, transforming Hellenistic Romanism into a culture of both Athens and Jerusalem. Jews themselves derived little enough benefit from this transformation, since Pauline Christianity had repudiated the ritual requirements of the Law and the new religion became increasingly estranged from the old. Once the new religion became the State Religion of Rome, the rigor with which Judaism had rejected the old gods now became public policy, to their own disability. Christianity never had the provision found in Islam, however grudging, for the toleration, within limits, of kindred religionists. The fate of Jews in Christendom thus became a matter of local preference, though no less an authority than St. Augustine said that Jews should be tolerated so that the Biblical prophecies of the Coming of Christ would be preserved by a disinterested, or even hostile, source. Augustine, interestingly, did not doubt that Jews could be trusted to faithfully preserve the Hebrew text of the Bible -- as they did.
The genealogy of the Hasmonaeans is from The Complete World of The Dead Sea Scrolls (Philip R. Davies, George J. Brooke, & Phillip R. Callaway, Thames & Hudson Ltd., 2002, p.42). The incestuous marriages of the children and grandchildren of Herod the Great, perhaps typical of a Hellenistic dynasty, like the Ptolemies, were very hard to understand. 
The chart in my edition of Josephus (The Jewish War, Penguin Classics, 1960, p.410) did not make things very clear, but then my colleague Don Smith helped straighten things out for me. There seems to be some question about the parentage of Herodias and Agrippa I -- with Davies, Brooke, & Callaway going for Aristobulus. Aristobulus and his brother Alexander, descendants of the Hasmonaeans through their mother, were both executed by Herod.
Since Mediaeval Jews shared in the continuing trade and commercial culture of the Middle East, and were often its only representatives in impoverished and ruralized Latin Europe, they became fatefully associated in European eyes with the commercial and financial practices that Europeans at once needed, wanted, misunderstood, and resented. 
A similar problem later occurred all over again in Eastern Europe, where the Kings of Poland were eager to bring in a more sophisticated population, unwelcome in Western Europe, to develop the country and strengthen the throne. Such resentments in time found theoretical expression in Marx's view that the Jews embodied the archetype of grasping and exploitive capitalism. This made them class enemies, but that was soon enough converted into race enemies when Marxism mutated into Fascism and Naziism. Jews who thought they had escaped the class and race animus in the Soviet Union soon came to be suspected, purged, and, increasingly, murdered by Stalin, while Hitler, of course, decided to kill them all. This helped promote the idea, not surprisingly, that all Jews should return to Palestine and found a Jewish State, which is what happened. After 2000 years, however, the Zionists found that they didn't have a lot in common with the modern Arabic speaking population of the place they returned to -- rather than learn Arabic, they even decided to revive Hebrew, which was already dying out as a spoken language in the days of the Hasmoneans, and which some Jews refused to speak as being a sacred language (they still speak Yiddish). After fifty years, this conflict between Israel and Arab Palestinians has still not been resolved.
By some estimates, e.g. Paul Johnson in his A History of the Jews [HarperPerennial, 1988], Jews constituted as much as 10% of the population of the Roman Empire. I am not familiar with the basis of this estimate, but I am familiar with the difficulty of estimating Roman population at all. I find so high a figure inherently improbable. Judaea, although the "land of milk and honey" in the Bible, is a pretty barren place. This is not going to support a large population, especially on the basis of ancient agriculture. That there should be as many Jews there as, for instance, Egyptians is impossible. Of course, a large part of the estimate is based on the Diaspora population. Even in the time of the Ptolemies, Alexandria already had a very large Jewish population. But that is a key point: the Diaspora population is mostly going to be urban; but the urban population of the Roman Empire is unlikely to have been more than 20% of the whole. Even today, 85% of the population of Tanzania, whose growth was ruined by the socialism of its post-independence government, is still in agriculture. If the population of the Empire was as much as 20% urban, and Jews were 10% of the population, then Jews would have to constitute nearly half of the population of every city, especially including Rome itself (which may have had a population of over a million people at one point -- it could only be fed by surplus grain from North Africa and Egypt). That is nothing like the impression we get from the records, where so large a group in Rome would be felt on a constant basis. So this "10%" seems like a gravely inflated figure, though we may never have a really accurate one.
When Jerusalem fell to Titus, the Temple and most of the city were demolished. The furniture and sacred vessels of the Temple, including, Josephus says, the red curtains of the Inner Sanctuary, were carried off to Rome -- portrayed on the Arch of Titus (through which mediaeval Jews refused to walk). They remained there until 455, when the Vandals sacked the city and removed their loot to Carthage. When Belisarius overthrew the Vandals for Justinian in 533 and found the items from the Temple in Carthage, they were sent back to Constantinople. According to Procopius, the treasures were being carried in the Triumph of Belisarius, when a Jew recognized them and passed word to the Emperor that keeping them in Constantinople would be inauspicious. Their removal from Jerusalem had brought misfortune on Rome and on the Vandals. So Justinian "became afraid and quickly sent everything to the sanctuaries of the Christians in Jerusalem" [Procopius, History of the Wars, II, Book IV, ix 5-10, translated by H.B. Dewing, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard U. Press, 1916, 2006, p.281]. There, if they indeed arrived, they disappear from history. There is no reason not to think that they were safely kept, but the city was then captured, looted, and destroyed by the Persians in 614. At that point many treasures, like the True Cross, were carried off to Ctesiphon (though returned after the victory of Heraclius in 628). There is no mention, however, of the fate of anything, generally or specifically, from the Temple in Jerusalem. Since the Jews of Jerusalem helped the Persians, it is possible they took charge of their own treasures, but there is no report of that, and no further historical report at all about the fate of the objects -- except perhaps for the fabulous stories about the Templars, who supposedly found many things in Jerusalem, though these reports are from much later and of a fabulous character. The great Menôrâh of the Temple, described in detail by Josephus and shown on the Arch, is certainly not something to be easily overlooked. Procopius, unfortunately, does not detail which items were among the treasures recovered by Belisarius. If the Menôrâh was there, any Jew of Constantinople certainly would have recognized it quickly and easily. We are thus left with a considerable mystery, and it is a little surprising that there are not, at least, legends about the fate of the Temple items.
Since it has previously been noted that the Ark of the Covenant, despite Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), was not carried off to Tanis, one might wonder what subsequently happened to it. Although Josephus speaks of Titus taking away "the Law," he describes nothing like the Ark. Later, Mediaeval sources (e.g. Mirabilia Urbis Romae, c.1143, The Marvels of Rome, Italica Press, New York, 1986, p.29) speak of the Ark having been in Rome, but this was long, long after the fact. It must not be forgotten, however, that the Temple had once before been destroyed, by Nebuchadnezzar, in 587 BC. It is not clear that anything of the Temple survived, and so the Ark could well have been destroyed then -- or concealed on the Temple Mount, where the Templars supposedly found it.
The maps here begin with Rome at its height under Trajan. The traditional notion that Trajan marched all the way down to the Persian Gulf now seems open to question, but he certainly annexed a good part of Mesopotamia, as well as Armenia and Dacia. These, as it happened, were all the most organized states on the borders of Rome, excepting only Kush. The Pax Romana thus was often a matter of war on the frontiers in order to preserve the peace within. But when Hadrian withdrew from some of Trajan's conquests, he was then troubled by the revolt of Bar Kochba in Judaea.
| 7. FLAVIANS & ANTONINES | |
|---|---|
| Vespasian T. Flavius Vespasianus | 69-79 |
| Jewish Revolt & War, 66-73: Destruction of Jerusalem, 70 AD; Fall of Masada, 73 | |
| Titus T. Flavius Vespasianus | 79-81 |
| Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, 79; Colosseum dedicated, 80 | |
| Domitian T. Flavius Domitianus | 81-96 |
| Nerva M. Cocceius Nerva | 96-98 |
| Trajan M. Ulpius Traianus | 97-117 |
| Dacia conquered, 101-106; Nabataean Petra annexed, 106; Armenia & Mesopotamia annexed, 114; Jewish Revolt, 115-117 | |
| Hadrian P. Aelius Hadrianus | 117-138 |
| Bar Kochba's Revolt in Judaea, 132-135 | |
| Antoninus Pius T. Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus | 138-161 |
| Lucius Verus L. Aurelius Verus | 161-169 |
| Parthian War, 162-168 | |
| Marcus Aurelius M. Aurelius Antoninus | 161-180 |
| Embassy in China?, 166; German War, 168-175 | |
| Commodus M. Aurelius Commodus Antoninus | 177-192 |
| non-dynastic | |
| Pertinax P. Helvius Pertinax | 193 |
| Didius Julianus M. Didius Severus Julianus | 193 |
| buys throne from Praetorian Guard for 25,000 sesterces per man | |
| Niger C. Pescennius Niger Justus | in Syria, 193-194 |
| Clodius Albinus Decimus Clodius Albinus | in Britain & Gaul, 193-197 |
He was succeeded by a fraternity of soldiers who adopted each other to secure competent and peaceful succession. The "Five Good Emperors" (in boldface) became the ideal of generations, all the way to Gibbon, for peaceful and benevolent government. Trajan was the first Emperor born in the provinces (Spain) and briefly, with his Mesopotamian campaign, expanded the Empire to its greatest extent. In the Middle Ages, Trajan had such a powerful reputation for goodness that the story began to circulate that God had brought him back to life just so he could convert to Christianity. Dante even includes that in the Divine Comedy. Antoninus Pius became the only Roman Emperor in 1500 years to be called "the Pious," but we really know precious little about his reign, which is only covered by the poor Historia Augusta. This may simply illustrate the principle that goodness and peace (the height of the "Pax Romana") is boring. The peace ended under Marcus Aurelius, the closest thing to a "philosopher king" until Thomas Jefferson, but also a very competent general, who smashed a major German invasion across the Danube, while consoling himself with Stoicism for the miseries of war, plague, and personal loss. Marcus's only real failure was to leave the Empire to his worthless son, Commodus -- dying in a place of modern note, Vienna (Vindobona). Hereditary succession, although eventually stabilized in Constantinople, would prove a dangerous principle at many moments in Roman history. The incompetence and viciousness of Commodus then set off his assassination and the second great free-for-all fight for the throne, in 193. This was not without its comic aspect, when the Praetorian Guard killed the disciplinarian Pertinax and literally put the throne up for sale. The wealthy Didius Julianus made the best bid but had no other ability to secure his rule. He was murdered as Septimius Severus, a notably humorless man, approached Rome -- and then also abolished the Guard.
A curious footnote to the period of the Antonines is an entry in the Chinese History of the Later Han Dynasty, the 
. It is recorded that in the year 166 an embassy arrived in Lo-Yang from a ruler of 
, "Great Ch'in," named Andun. This had come up from Vietnam after, apparently, travelling by sea from the West. Andun looks like it might be "Antoninus," which could mean either Antoninus Pius or Marcus Aurelius, both of whom used the name. Thus, "Great Ch'in" is usually taken to mean Rome, and the embassy was sent to explore ways to redirect the silk trade around the route, the Silk Road through Central Asia, dominated by the Parthians. If so, nothing came of it. The possibility of any communication between the great contemporary Empires of Rome and the Han is tantalizing. My impression has been that Chinese attempts to establish some communication overland were frustrated by the Parthians. Since we know that the Romans had knowledge of and trade with India and Ceylon, and that Chinese pilgrims like Fa-Hsien went by sea from India to China (399-414), it is not at all impossible or unlikely that some Romans, in the days of the Kushans in India, could have done what the Hou Hanshu says. The History was actually written in the 5th century, and the Chinese were still aware that the Parthians were frustrating attempts at direct trade with "Great Ch'in."
| 8. SEVERANS | |
|---|---|
| Septimius Severus L. Septimius Severus | 193-211 |
| prohibition of conversions to Judaism or Christianity, 202 | |
| Caracalla M. Aurelius (Septimius Bassianus) Antoninus | 198-217 |
| Geta P. Lucius Septimius Geta | 209-211 |
| Roman Citizenship to all free persons, 212 | |
| Macrinus M. Opellius Macrinus | 217-218 |
| Diadumenian M. Oppellius Diadumenianus | 218 |
| Elagabalus M. Aurelius Antoninus | 218-222 |
| Alexander Severus M. Aurelius Alexander | 222-235 |
This set off another brief free-for-all, until loyalty to the Severan family prevailed. The "family," however, turned out to be the entirely matrilineal creation of Severus' sister-in-law, Julia Maesa, who brought her two grandsons, entirely unrelated to Severus, to the throne. The bizarre Elagabalus (sometimes "Heliogabalus"), styling himself the god of his grandmother's Syrian solar cult (and engaging gladiators in combats more amorous and carnal than Commodus had contemplated), and then the amiable and reasonably effective Alexander thus wrapped up the dynasty. Alexander was killed after the overdue reality check of battle, against the newly aggressive Persians. He was not that bad, but evidently not good enough for his own troops, who killed him and his mother -- that his mother was along with him on a military campaign probably seemed no better to the soldiers than it does now. Septimius Severus himself was one of the two Roman Emperors (Constantius Chlorus was the other) to die (a natural death) at York (Eboracum) in Britain.
A bit of an intellectual revival took place at the court of Septimius Severus. This has been called the "Second Sophistic" and was largely due to the interests of Julia Domna. In a history of the sophists written at the time, by Philostratus, he says that Julia attracted a circle of mathematicians and philosophers. However, this actually meant something more like "astrologers and sophists," and the revival was more of a retrospective on ancient philosophy than a movement that contributed much original or of interest to it. Nevertheless, such an inspiration and preoccupation has been compared to similar concerns in the Renaissance. A characteristic of the Second Sophistic, which we see in the earlier historian, philosopher, and official (he repelled the Alans from Cappadocia) Arrian of Nicomedia (c.87-c.145 AD, Consul 129), is the movement to write in Attic Greek, rather than in the Koiné of the Hellenistic Period. This is usually dismissed as an affectation and a frivolity. Perhaps it was, but it is also directly comparable to the concern of Renaissance writers to restore the "purity" of Ciceronian Latin over the received Mediaeval Latin that had survived to their time. Renaissance writers are rarely belabored for affectation because of this. Attic Greek and Ciceronian Latin, indeed, are languages we do not want forgotten -- while they are in greater danger in our time than ever before: a Shakespeare with "little Latin and less Greek" is a scholar of Classics compared to most graduates of modern universities.
B. CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY, 235-284, 49 Years
This map looks like it should be from the Fifth Century. The Goths, not yet divided, are here, but they come in part by boat, which we will not see with them later. The Franks here duplicate the later course of the Vandals, through Gaul, Spain, and North Africa, but without the same effects. Later, the Franks will not be a principal invader but will be the ultimate beneficiary of the invasions. The Alemanni also will be less active later, remaining in Germany and leaving their name as the word for "German" in Romance languages. Rome is weakened by revolt in the West and a Palyrmene takeover in the East. But in this era Roman institutions prove resilient enough to restore the status quo ante (with troubling strategic withdrawals). But the Germans remain across the Rhine and Danube, growing in numbers and sophistication. One might even say that all this was a dress rehearsal for the later invasions. In the theater, if the dress rehearsal goes poorly, the opening will go well. This is what happened.
The Gallic Empire of Postumus began under Gallienus. Postumus, of course, probably would rather have overthrown the Emperor, but he was not able to defeat him and was otherwise involved with fighting Germans. In best Third Century tradition, he was killed by his troops. This form of succession continued until Tetricus and his son surrendered to Aurelian, on condition of their peaceful retirement. This episode echoes the attempt of the usurper Constantine in the Fifth Century, though that failed to suppress the Germans in that era and merely served to absorb the attention of Roman forces that could have been better used, in conjunction with those of Constantine himself, against the common enemy. The Palmyrene Empire had a very different origin and course. Odaenath, the King of Palmyra (c.260-266), was a Roman ally. After the capture of Valerian, he actually defeated and expelled the victorious Persians. This earned him Roman gratitude and titles, like Dux Romanorum. It also left him as the de facto ruler of the East. Odaenath was murdered and succeeded by his wife Zenobia, who then joins Cleopatra and Boudicca (Boadicea), if not Dido, in the ranks of the conspicuous and romantic female enemies of Rome. This grew gradually, as Roman weakness tempted Zenobia's ambition. When she moved into Egypt and Asia Minor in 269-270, trouble was definitely brewing, but it was her proclamation of her son Vaballathus as Emperor that brought Aurelian out against her. She was exhibited in Aurelian's Triumph but then allowed to live out her life on a pension in Rome. Palmyra became a Roman outpost. Today, its ruins are extensive, beautiful, and evocative, out in the emptiness of the Syrian desert, next to the Oasis and the small modern city. The Oasis gave the city its importance as an essential link in the caravan short-cut across the desert from Mesopotamia to Syria. Even greater enemies of Rome have far less to show for themselves today.
| Maximinus I Thrax C. Julius Verus Maximinus | 235-238 | SONS, BROTHERS, etc. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gordian I Africanus M. Antonius Gordianus Sempronianus | 238 | Gordian II M. Antonius Gordianus Sempronianus | 238 |
| Balbinus & Pupiens D. Caelius Calvinus Balbinus & M. Clodius Pupienus Maximus | 238 | ||
| Gordian III M. Antonius Gordianus | 238-244 | ||
| Philip I the Arab M. Julius Philippus | 244-249 | Philip II M. Julius Severus Philippus | 247-249 |
| Decius C. Messius Quintus Decius | 249-251 | Herennius Q. Herennius Etruscus Messius Decius | 251 |
| Hostilian C. Valens Hostilianus Gallus | 251 | ||
| Trebonianus Gallus C. Vibius Trebonianus Gallus | 251-253 | Volusian C. Vibius Afinius Gallus Veldumnianus Volusianus | 253 |
| Aemilian M. Aemilius Aemilianus | 253 | ||
| Valerian I P. Licinius Valerianus | 253-260 | Valerian II P. Licinius Cornelius Valerianus | Caesar, 253-258 |
| Saloninus P. Licinius Cornelius Saloninus Valerianus | 255-259 | ||
| Gallienus P. Licinius Egnatius Gallienus | 253-268 | ||
| German invasions, 257; defeated and captured by the Sassanid Shâh Shapur I, 260 | |||
| Postumus M. Cassianius Latinius Postumus | in Gaul, 259-268 | ||
| invasion by the Goths, 267 | |||
| Claudius II Gothicus M. Aurelius Claudius | 268-270 | Quintillus M. Aurelius Quintillus | 270 |
| Defeat of Goths, 269 | |||
| Victorianus M. Piavonius Victorinus | in Gaul, 268-270 | ||
| Tetricus I C. Pius Esuvius Tetricus | in Gaul, 270-273 | Tetricus II C. Pius Esuvius Tetricus | 270-273 |
| Zenobia Septimia Zenobia | Palmyra, 267-272 | Vaballathus L. Julius Aurelius Septimius Vaballathus Athenodorus | 270-273 |
| Aurelian L. Domitius Aurelianus | 270-275 | ||
| Withdrawal from Dacia, 271 | |||
| Tacitus M. Claudius Tacitus | 275-276 | Florian M. Annius Florianus | 276 |
| Probus M. Aurelius Probus | 276-282 | ||
| Carus M. Aurelius Carus | 282-283 | Numerian M. Aurelius Numerianus | 283-284 |
| Carinus M. Aurelius Carinus | 283-285 | ||
Not much in the way of dynasties in this period. Many Emperors, of course, wanted to associate their sons with them to arrange for their succession; but in the violent ends of most Emperors, the sons usually died with them. Gordian III, Gallienus, and Carinus are the principal exceptions, ruling in their own right after the death of fathers or, with Gordian, uncle and grandfather.
The invasions and political troubles of the Third Century shook the religious and philosophical certainties upon which Rome had previously thrived. Exotic religious cults, like Mithraism and Christianity, now began to exert wide appeal; and a profound shift occurred in philosophy. We no longer hear much of Stoics or Epicureans, but whole new perspectives and concerns are ushered in by the mystical Egyptian Plotinus (d.270), who even enjoyed some Imperial patronage under Gordian III, Philip the Arab, and Gallienus. He makes the Second Sophistic look superficial indeed. With his return to the epistemology and metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle, Plotinus, as such the founder of Neoplatonism, picks up the mainstream of development of the Western philosophical tradition, which had somewhat detoured in the Hellenistic Period through revivals of Presocratic doctrine (Heraclitus for the Stoics, Atomism for the Epicureans). Plotinus's student, disciple, Boswell, and editor Porphyry (d.>300), who enjoyed patronage from Aurelian, promoted Neoplatonic principles, wrote an introduction to Aristotle's logical works, the Isagoge, which became an indispensable text in the Middle Ages, and even began organizing the defense of traditional religion in his Against the Christians -- though the Neoplatonic version of traditional religion now looks much more of a piece with Christian sensibilities than with things like the peculiar and archaic practices examined by Frazer in The Golden Bough. The cultural and intellectual sea change of the period, soon followed by Diocletian's reforms and then Constantine, usher in the distinctive world of Late Antiquity. Classicists start to become nervous and irritable.
275 AD
II. SECOND EMPIRE, EARLY "ROMANIA," 284 AD-610 AD, Era of Diocletian 1-327, 326 years| L'altro che segue, con le leggi e meco, sotto buona intenzion che fé mal frutto, per cedre al pastor si fece greco:
| The next who follows, with the laws and me, with a good intention which bore bad fruit, made himself Greek, to cede to the Pastor. |
| ora conosce come il mal dedutto dal suo bene operar non li è nocivo, avvegna che sia 'l mondo indi distrutto. |
Now he knows how the evil derived from his good action does not harm him, though the world should be destroyed thereby. |
The "Second Empire" is a period of transformation whose beginning and end seem worlds apart. Even at the beginning, however, Classicists find themselves becoming uncomfortable, in large part because they are now rubbing shoulders with Byzantinists, Mediaevalists, and, worse, historians of religion and, gasp, even of the Church. In the Middle Ages, this was regarded as a triumphant period, when the Roman Empire was redeemed and ennobled with its conversion to and transformation by Christianity -- becoming a "Romania" whose name is now not even familiar as the name of the Roman Empire. In Modern thought, this construction tends to be reversed, with the superstition and dogmatism of Christianity dragging the Classical World down into the Dark Ages. At the same time, however, there is still a strong attraction to the idea of blaming the collapse of the Empire on the characteristics of pagan Roman society -- slavery, the Games, sexual license, corruption, etc. Since this is more or less the Christian critique of pagan society, we have the curious case of critics maintaining the perspective of Christian moralism even while rejecting Christianity as the appropriate response. This not entirely coherent approach also results in the doublethink of moral satisfaction with the "fall" of the (Western) Empire in 476 while carefully ignoring the survival and resurgence of the Empire in the East. The truth, as it happens, is one of continuity. The very same institutions, both Roman and Christian in sum and detail, that failed in the West in the face of the German threat, did just fine in the East, long outlasting, and in two dramatic cases defeating, the German successor kingdoms. What neither Trajan nor Constantine nor Justinian could have anticipated were the blows that would fall next.
A. "DOMINATE," 284-379, 95 years
290 AD
| 1. TETRARCHS | ||
|---|---|---|
| Diocletian C. Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus | Augustus 284-305, 286-305 East | retired 305, died 311 or 313 |
| Maximian M. Aurelius Valerius Maximianus | Augustus 286-305 West | Usurper 306-308, 310 West |
| Constantius I Chlorus Fl. Valerius Constantius | Caesar 293-305 West | Augustus 305-306 West |
| Galerius C. Galerius Valerius Maximianus | Caesar 293-305 East | Augustus 305-311 East |
| Maximinus II Daia Galerius Valerius Maximinus | Caesar 305-309 East | Augustus 309-313 East |
| Severus Fl. Valerius Severus | Caesar 305-306 West | Augustus 306-307 West |
| Constantine I the Great Fl. Valerius Constantinus | Caesar 306-307 West, 308-309 West | Augustus 307-308 West, 309-337 West, 324-337 East |
| [Maxentius M. Aurelius Valerius Maxentius] | Usurper 306-312, Italy | |
| Licinius Valerius Licinianus Licinius | Augustus 308-324 East | |
| [Domitius Alexander] | Usurper 308-311, Africa | |
In 305 Diocletian actually retired from office, going to live at his retirement villa (more like city) at Split (Spalatum) near Solin (Salonae) in Dalmatia (now Croatia) -- see J.J. Wilkes, Diocletian's Palace, Split: Residence of a Retired Roman Emperor [Oxbow Books, Oxford, 1986, 1993]. This may have been at the urging of Galerius, who was eager for full power, and was taken with ill grace by Maximian, who tried to return to power twice and was finally killed. By 308, with Severus killed by Maximian's son Maxentius and Constantine proclaimed Augustus by his troops, Diocletian was called to a conference at Carnuntum on the Danube in Upper (Superior) Pannonia (just down the river from modern Vienna, Roman Vindobona). Diocletian was even offered the throne, but declined it -- saying he would rather grow vegetables. The result of the conference was the demotion of Constantine to Caesar (again), the appointment of Lincinius as Augustus, the second retirement of Maximian, and the declaration of Maxentius as an outlaw. A noteworthy act at the conference was the dedication of an altar to the god Mithras, as the fautor imperii, "protector of the Empire." Mithraism considered Mithras to be a sun god, associated and assimilated with Sol Invictus, the "Unconquered Sun," whose cult existed independently of Mithras and had been promoted since Aurelian. Mithraism, although popular in the Army (only men were initiated), was not an Imperial or prestige cult, until this dedication, Deo Soli Invicto Mithrae, "to the god Mithras the Unconquered Sun." We might see this as one of the last acts in the development of state paganism, before Constantine becomes a patron of Christianity and gods like Mithras disappear.
One of the most famous aspects of Diocletian's rule is the famous "Edict on Maximum Prices" of 301 AD. Since Diocletian himself explains the law as needed to prevent some from profiteering off of the basic needs of others, this is turns out to be relevant to many modern debates. The "greed" of those who make a profit while prices rise is still a point of useful political appeal for many politicians and leftist activists. It looks, however, like prices, especially agricultural prices, were rising under Diocletian because the tax burden had become so large that many people simply abandoned their farms -- Diocletian also tried forbidding this. Since Dioceltian himself was not a sympathetic person to Christian writers, the charge of "greed" tends to get turned around, as the contemporary writer Lactantius, appointed by Diocletian himself as a professor of Latin literature in Nicomedia, the capital, says, "...Diocletian with his insatiable greed..." Lactantius' account of bureaucratic excess and behavior could apply in many modern situations:
The number of recipients began to exceed the number of contributors by so much that, with farmers' resources exhausted by the enormous size of the requisitions, fields became deserted and cultivated land was turned into forest. To ensure that terror was universal, provinces too were cut into fragments; many governors and even more officials were imposed on individual regions, almost on individual cities, and to these were added numerous accountants, controllers and prefects' deputies. The activities of all these people were very rarely civil... [J.J. Wilkes, Diocletian's Palace, Split: Residence of a Retired Roman Emperor, op. cit., p.5]
Not only now are there whole countries where the dependent classes exceed the numbers of the productive classes (e.g. Italy or France), but in the United States the fate of the Social Security system will probably be sealed when the number of beneficiaries exceeds the number of contributors. These modern systems, although voted in by popular majorities who like "free lunch" welfare politics, are run by bureaucrats whose behavior, of course, is "very rarely civil" either to contributors or beneficiaries. And modern bureaucrats are protected from accountability by "Civil Service" status and their own politically active and powerful public employee labor unions. Yet politicians rarely characterize or criticize such people for their own self-interest or greed, although this phenomenon is now well understood and described in Public Choice economics. While the behavior of the bureaucrats is understandable, the harshest truth is that, with sovereignty no longer invested in a autocrat like Diocletian, the ultimate "greed" today is derived from the voters.
The map reflects some recent developments in scholarship. Previously, the Goths were regarded as already divided into the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, with the Ostrogoths developing an "empire" that was thought to have stretched all the way back to the Baltic Sea. This culminated under King Ermanaric (i.e. "King [riks] Herman," where "Herman" itself is from [h]er[i], "army," and man, "man"), who committed suicide when defeated and subjugated by the Huns around 370. Now it looks like, for all their divisions, the Goths were not divided, or identified, in the terms that later became familiar for the Kingdoms in Spain and Italy. Ermanaric was King of the Greuthungi, and it is unlikely that he ruled a domain that stretched to the Baltic. Indeed, it doesn't even look like it even reached the Don in the east. The Goths who were granted asylum on Roman territory in 376 were the Tervingi, led by Alavivus and Fritigern. After their revolt, however, the Greuthungi joined the Tervingi. With some other Gothic groups, these all became the Visigoths. The Ostrogoths developed later, around a core led by the Amal dynasty. These changes in view are now recently explained by Peter Heather in The Fall of the Roman Empire [Oxford, 2006]. Although the Huns subjugated all the Goths but the Visigoths, the Goths nevertheless exercised considerable cultural influence on them. Thus, we find Attila with a Gothic name, "Little Father." But while atta was the Gothic word for "father," it is curious that ata is still the Turkish word for "father." Indeed, adda was Sumerian for "father." Winfred P. Lehmann (A Gothic Etymological Dictionary, E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1986, p.46) explains these correspondences as a coincidence of "nursery words" -- "No need to assume borrowing in spite of earlier attestations, such as Hitt[ite] attas, which Puhvel [Hittite etymological dictionary, 1984] derives 'from infantile language'" [p.46]. This strikes me as a bit unsatisfactory, though perhaps no more than the alternative: that this is another fragment of evidence for a connection between Indo-European and Altaic languages, and Sumerian.
| 2. CONSTANTIANS | |
|---|---|
| Constantius I Chlorus Fl. Valerius Constantius | 293-306 W |
| Constantine I the Great Fl. Valerius Constantinus | 306-337 W+E |
|
Christianity legalized, 312; Ecumenical Council I, Nicaea I, Nicene Creed, 325; Constantinople, Roma Nova, founded, construction begun, 4 November 328; Constantinople dedicated, 11 May 330 | |
| Constantine II Fl. Claudius Contantinus | 337-340 W |
| Constans I Fl. Julius Constans | 337-350 W |
| [Magnentius Fl. Magnus Magnentius] | 350-353 W |
| Constantius II Fl. Julius Constantius | 337-361 E+W |
| Gallus Fl. Claudius Constantius Gallus | 351-354 E, Caesar |
| Julian the Apostate Fl. Claudius Julianus | 355-360 W, Caesar; 360-363, Augustus |
| non-dynastic | |
| Jovian Fl. Jovianus | 363-364 |
The earliest mention of anything of the sort, by Lactantius again, is that Constantine had a dream where he was shown the "cypher of Christ," the Greek letters Chi and Rho, which he caused to be put on the shields of his soldiers. Later versions thus increase the dramatic and miraculous elements of the event, using what later would become the most symbolic of Christianity, the Cross. Using a Christian symbol in any form, however, and for any reason, would have been dramatic enough. Constantine's Empire went to his three sons, who might have shared it with their cousins, but killed them instead. The sons, however, ended up with no heirs themselves, and the last family member on the throne, Julian, was one of the cousins who had escaped the massacre. Julian, whose own writings have been preserved, is one of the better known but stranger figures of the century. Quixotically trying to restore paganism, he only seemed to demonstrate that the old gods were spent and nobody's heart was really in it anymore. Although apparently a fine enough military commander against the Franks, Julian's short reign ended with another Quixotic effort, against Persia. It was not so much the war itself as the ill conceived scale of the invasion, which left Julian all but stranded with his army, deep in Mesopotamia, with the Persians avoiding battle but constantly harassing him. Somehow this had not happened to Alexander, Trajan, Heraclius, or the forces of the Caliph Omar. It cost Julian his life, and his religious cause, since the Christian Jovian was then chosen by the Army.
378 AD
| 3. VALENTIANS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Valentinian I Fl. Valentinianus | 364-375 W | Valens Fl. Valens | 364-378 E |
| Gratian Fl. Gratianus | 367-383 W | great earthquake in Crete, 365; defeated and killed by the Visigoths, Battle of Adrianople, 378 | |
| Theodosius I, the Great Fl. Theodosius | 379-395 E | ||
| [Magnus Maximus] | 383-388 W | ||
| Valentinian II Fl. Valentinianus | 375-392 W | ||
| [Eugenius Fl. Eugenius] | 392-394 W | ||
A great earthquake on Crete in 365, which thrust up the coast some 20 feet, has recently become a matter of interest for modern geologists. An account of it by Ammianus Marcellinus includes what may be the first detailed description in history of the phenomenon of a tsunami:
...the solid frame of the earth shuddered and trembled, and the sea was moved from its bed and went rolling back. The abyss of the deep was laid open; various types of marine creatures could be seen stuck in the slime, and huge mountains and valleys which had been hidden since the creation in the depths of the waves then, one must suppose, saw the light of the sun for the first time. [Ammianus Marcellinus, The Later Roman Empire, (A.D.354-378), Penguin Classics, 1986, p.333]
Not realizing that the sea would come back, people wandered down to the revealed places. As the water "burst in fury" and surged up onto the land on its return, thousands were killed, towns were leveled, and "the whole face of the earth was changed" [ibid.]. As far away as Alexandria, the tidal wave tossed ships onto the tops of buildings; and Ammianus himself later inspected a decaying ship that had been carried inland ad secundum lapidem, "to the second milestone," near Mothone (or Methone) in the Peloponnesus. Edward Gibbon, contemptuous of the Late Empire and its historian, and apparently never having heard of such phenomena, didn't believe Ammianus:
Such is the bad taste of Ammianus (xxvi.10), that it is not easy to distinguish his facts from his metaphors. Yet he positively affirms that he saw the rotten carcass of a ship, ad secundum lapidem, at Methone, or Modon, in Peloponnesus. [The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume I, Modern Library, p.899].
Tsunamis are not so rare, however, that it is not in the living memory of many to have seen the seafloor bared or ships thrown about in just the manner described, most recently in Indonesia in 2004. The modern historian might do well to consider how the death and destruction of the great earthquake may have weakened the resources of the area on the crucial eve of the struggle with the Visigoths.
B. CRISIS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, 379-476, 97 Years
The map shows the key incursions that would fatally undermine the Western Empire. After the death of Theodosius I, the Visigoths begin to move around in the Balkans. In the course of dealing with this, the Rhine frontier becomes stripped of troops. When the Suevi, Alans, and Vandals crossed the frozen Rhine on New Year's Eve of 407, nothing stood in their way when they looted their way across Gaul and Spain. As they settled down in Spain, the Visigoths arrived in Italy. Later in 407, the usurper Constantine took his troops out of Britain, simultaneously to secure Gaul and to establish himself as Emperor. Honorius, secure in Ravenna (as Rome, after a fashion, burned), had to tell the British (410) they were on their own.
One of the most interesting people in the diagram is the Empress Galla Placidia, the daughter of Theodosius I, the wife of Constantius III, and the mother of Valentinian III. With Honorius and Constantius she was buried in the chapel of Saints Nazarius and Celsus in Ravenna. J.B. Bury (History of the Later Roman Empire Vol. 1, Dover 1958, p. 263) says that "her embalmed body in Imperial robes seated on a chair of cypress wood could be seen through a hole in the back till A.D. 1577, when all the contents of the tomb were accidentally burned thourgh the carelessness of children." Mosaics in Ravenna from this period already show the books of the Bible bound in codices, i.e. familiar bound books rather than scrolls.
| 1. THEODOSIANS, WEST | WESTERN COMMANDERS | 1. THEODOSIANS, EAST | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 394-395, West | Fl. Theodosius | 379-395, East | |||
| Council II, Constantinople I, Arianism condemned, 381; Destruction of the Serapeum, 391; Abolition of the Olympic Games, 394 (?) | |||||
| Honorius Fl. Honorius | 395-423 W | Stilicho | 395-408 | Arcadius Fl. Arcadius | 395-408 E |
| Suevi, Vandals, & Alans cross Rhine, 1 January 407 | |||||
| Constantius III Fl. Constantius |
410-421 | Theodosius II Fl. Theodosius | 408-450 E | ||
| 421 W | |||||
| Gladiatorial combat ended in Colosseum, 404; Rome sacked by Visigoths, 410; Gaul recovered from Constantine "III," 411; Visigoths destroy Alans and Siling Vandals in Spain, 416 | |||||
| [Constantine "III"] | 407-411 in Britain, Gaul & Spain | Castinus | 422-425 | ||
| John Johannes | 423-425 W | defeated by Vandals in Spain, 422 | |||
| Valentinian III Fl. Placius Valentinianus | 425-455 W | Felix | 425-430 | ||
| Aëtius Fl. Aëtius | 430-454 | ||||
| Vandals invade Africa, 428; Council III, Ephesus, Nestorianism condemned, 431; Vandals repulsed from Carthage, 435; Vandals take Carthage, 439; expedition against Vandals cancelled, 441 | |||||
| Attila the Hun halted at Châlons, 451; Rome sacked by Vandals, 455 | Marcian | 450-457 E | |||
| Council IV, Chalcedon, Monophysitism condemned, 451 | |||||
On the map, the Visigoths have actually become allies of the Romans. In return for cleaning (most of) the Germans out of Spain, they are legally settled in Aquitaine. Two German tribes, however, are left unmolested. The Suevi establish themselves, for centuries, in Galicia, and the Asding Vandals cross over into Africa. Of all the blows the Roman power, the latter would prove to be one of the worst. Rome could no longer draw grain from North Africa. Much worse, the crafty Vandal King Gaiseric ("King Caesar") built a fleet after securing Carthage in 439. He then did what the Carthaginians so many centuries earlier had not been able to do: secure control of the seas. In 455 they did what Hannibal could only have dreamed of, arriving at Rome by sea, breaking into and looting the city, and carrying the booty back to Carthage. Meanwhile, around the same year, Hengest the Jute, followed by Angles and Saxons, founded the Kingdom of Kent.
It is noteworthy that the Venerable Bede (673-735) numbered Theodosius II as the 45th and Marcian as the 46th Emperors since Augustus. This is considerably less than the count we might make now and it interestingly implies that Bede possessed a sort of "official" list from which many ephemeral Emperors were excluded [note]. After Roman Britain disappeared from history, when the usurper Constantine "III" took his troops to Gaul, Bede's History of the English Church and People is just about the first that we then hear of it, three hundred years later. What events filled that time became strongly mythologized, especially around the figure of King Arthur. Bede does not mention Arthur, but he does talk about a British leader against the Angles, Ambrosius Aurelius, who gained a period of peace after defeating the invaders at Badon Hill in about 493 (or 518). This becomes an element of the Arthur story. I suspect that the vividness of the Arthur stories, like that of the Greek epics and of the Mahâbhârata in India, is an artifact of a literate society that for a time lost its literacy but remembered, after a fashion, what it was like. The literature on the problem of Arthur and Britain in this period is vast. Two of the more interesting recent books might be The Discovery of King Arthur by Geoffrey Ashe [Guild Publishing, London, 1985] and From Scythia to Camelot, A Radical Reassessment of the Legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Holy Grail by C. Scott Littleton and Linda A. Malcor [Garland Publshing, Inc, New York, 1994]. Littleton and Malcor made the significant discovery that the scene of Arthur's death in Mallory's Morte d'Arthur, where the sword Excalibur was thrown into a lake, occurs in almost identical terms in the legends of the Ossetians in the Caucasus. There is a possible connection, since the Ossetians are descendants of the Alans, and Marcus Aurelius had settled a tribe of Alans, the Iazyges, whom he had defeated in 175 and taken into Roman service, in the north of Britain, where many of them settled at Bremetenacum Veteranorum, south of Lancaster. The legion to which the Iazyges were assigned, the VI Legion Victrix, was commanded by one Lucius Artorius Castus. "Artorius" looks like the Latin source of the name "Arthur." There is nothing certain about the speculations and disputes over all this, however, except that they will be endless [note].
| 2. LAST WESTERN EMPERORS [names in brackets not recognized by East] | WESTERN COMMANDERS | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| [Petronius Maximus] | 455 W | ||
| Avitus Eparchius Avitus | 455-456 W | Ricimer | 456-472 |
| Majorian Julius Valerius Maiorianus | 457-461 W | ||
| expedition against Vandals fails, 461 | |||
| [Libius Severus] | 461-465 W | ||
| interregnum | 465-467 W | ||
| Anthemius Procopius Anthemius | 467-472 W | ||
| Joint E/W expedition against Vandals fails, 468 | |||
| [Olybrius Anicius Olybrius] | 472 W | ||
| interregnum | 472-473 W | Gundobad, King of Burgundy | 472-474 |
| [Glycerius] | 473-474 W | ||
| Julius Nepos | 474-480 W | Ecdicius | 474-475 |
| son of Avitus | |||
| deposed in Ravenna, retreats to Dalmatia, 475 | Orestes | 475-476 | |
| [Romulus "Augustulus"] | |||
| 475-476 W | |||
| 476-493 | |||
| deposes Orestes & Augustulus, 476; Nepos killed, 480; defeated, besieged, & killed by Theodoric, 489-493 | |||
In 2007, we have a movie, The Last Legion, that is about Romulus Augustulus, Odoacer, et al. This is an extensively fictionalized and even silly version of events, where Romulus Augustulus flees to Britain and becomes, well, King Arthur -- with Ben Kingsley as some sort of Merlin. Since the project is clearly a fantasy, it does not merit much notice, except for the points that would give people the wrong idea about the era. The worst part of the story may be that it has it that Odoacer was a (filthy, wild) Goth attacking Rome (a former ally rather like Alaric). Odoacer was not a Goth, but from a lesser German tribe, the Sciri, and he was not attacking Rome, but simply a member of the (barbarized) Roman army. Odoacer in fact was eventually deposed (from Ravenna, of course) by Goths, the Ostrogoths under Theodoric. The distortion is certainly made to preserve the image of Rome (the City) being conquered by barbarian hordes. At the same time, we get the notion that Romulus Augustulus is somehow the descendant or heir of Julius Caesar. There is no evidence of this, Caesar himself had no descendants, and the other heirs were pretty much wiped out by 69 AD (though the movie actually says that the unrelated Tiberius was the last of the ruling Caesars!). The Eastern Empire does come in for mention in the movie, but only so that it can absurdly contribute a female warrior, played by an actress from India, to the defense of Rome. Hollywood (or, in this case, the Euro Italian-French-British co-producers) should save this stuff for the coming remake of Conan the Barbarian.
Little is known about the Roman pocket in the north of Gaul. We hear about Aegidius, the magister militum per Gallias, apparently appointed by Majorian. This is noteworthy, since the commander of Roman forces in Gaul hitherto had been only the magister equitum, Master of Horses instead of Soldiers. Bury speculates that Aegidius held both titles [J.B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, Volume I, Dover Publications, 1958, p.333]. Aegidius did not accept the fall of Majorian or recognize Libius Severus, but he was preoccupied fighting the Visigoths until his death in 464. He was followed by someone we only know as the Count (comes) Paul. "Count" ("companion" of the Emperor) is actually a high title, but Bury supposes he must have also held the "Master" titles also. If Paul styled himself "Count," however, this may have just been one step short of claiming the Purple. Ricimer appointed his own magister militum for Gaul, Gundioc, the King of Burgundy (434-473). Both Aegidius and Paul had the help of the Franks, who remained loyal Roman allies, against the Visigoths and Burgundians. That changed when a new Frankish King, Clovis (Chlodwig), succeeded his father in 481. Meanwhile, Paul had been followed by the son of Aegidius, Syagrius. The Franks actually called him rex Romanorum, a good indication that his realm and authority were seen as quite independent -- indeed, there was no longer a Western Emperor at that point. It is not known what Syagrius called himself. Clovis defeated him at Soissons in 486. Syagrius fled to the Visigoths, who returned him for execution by Clovis. This was the end of Roman Gaul, 541 years after Caesar had completed its conquest in 56 BC -- or perhaps 531 years since the defeat, capture, and death of the rebel Vercingetorix in 46 BC. Now the dominance of the Franks would begin, and in time Gaul would take their name.
C. THE EAST ALONE, 476-518, 42 Years
| 1. LEONINES | |
|---|---|
| Leo I | 457-474 E |
| Joint E/W expedition against Vandals fails, 468 | |
| Leo II | 473-474 E |
| Zeno the Isaurian (Tarasikodissa) | 474-491 E+W |
| [Basiliscus] | 475-476 E |
| Anastasius I | 491-518 |
| reforms coinage, 498 | |
had rendered the Western Army useless. A last chance to recoup things for the whole Empire came in 468, after Leo had gotten Ricimer to accept the Theodosian relative Anthemius as Western Emperor. A joint amphibious campaign was put together to recover Africa from the Vandals. This should have succeeded, but it failed through a combination of incompetence, treachery, and bad luck. Ricimer may not have really wanted it to succeed, and it wasn't long before he got rid of Anthemius. After Odoacer decided not to bother with a Western Emperor, Leo's Isaurian son-in-law, Zeno, found himself as the first Emperor of a "united" Empire since Theodosius I, but little was left of the West. Only Odoacer in Italy vaguely acknowledged the Emperor's suzerainty -- we don't know what allegiance to Constantinople, if any, remained in the Roman pocket in northern Gaul. Nothing was done about this at the time, and Anastasius, by temperament or by wisdom, concentrated on allowing the East to rest and build up its strength. Part of that involved reforming the coinage, which is one of the benchmarks for the beginning of "Byzantine" history.
On the map we see the classic form of the German successor Kingdoms of the Western Empire. By 493 Theodoric the Ostrogoth, invited by the Emperor Anastasius, had taken out Odoacer in Italy. This was just in time to save the Visigoths, who were defeated by the Franks in 507 and pushed out of Gaul. The result has the look of a nice balance of power, but there is no telling how long that might have lasted. What upset things was not any internal development, but a most unexpected revival and return of Roman power. In the beloved story of the "Fall" of Rome, this sequel is usually what gets overlooked.
Also noteworthy as a benchmark for the beginning of Byzantine history in the time of the Leonines is the apparent disappearance of the traditional Roman tria nomina, the three names of praenômen, nômen, and cognômen, which have been given with previous Emperors. The last Emperor with three full names may have been Majorian, Julius Valerius Majorianus. In general, the Valentian and Theodosian Emperors only had two names, e.g. Valens, Fl. Valens, and Theodosius I & II, both Fl. Theodosius. From Marcian onward there is no evidence of any traditional Roman nomenclature. Why is this happening? Well, even though it had been some time since the nômen had lost its connection to the actual ancestral gens (the clan), and all the names were becoming like titles, the system of the tria nomina still bore an essential connection to the Roman family cult of ancestor worship. No Confucian venerated ancestors in a household shrine more devoutly than the pious Roman. But this could not survive with the adoption of Christianity. A Christian receives a single Christian name. Indeed, it is a while before we get names, like Michael or John, that look more Christian than Roman and Greek, like Jovian, Leo, or Heraclius (still commemorating Heracles -- and so Hera); but the trend is obvious. Indeed, the names beginning with the Valentians look like the perfunctory addition of "Flavius" to the single basic name of the Emperors -- even of Aëtius, "Flavius Aëtius." Eventually we get the return of surnames, at first for nobility. The first Dynasty with a family name will be the Ducases in the 11th century. It took a few more centuries before surnames became common among European Christians of all classes.
Another momentous transition is in architecture. The lovely temples of Classical antiquity, like jewels in the landscape, disappear. Christian churches of the period often look like piles of bowls or dark fruitcakes. Or we simply get the basilica, a Roman courthouse. Churches often are not even visible from a distance, because they may be packed around with other buildings. Why is this happening? Were Christians just anaesthetic? No. The aesthetic was certainly changing, but the most important difference was just the difference in purpose between a temple and a church. A temple was the house of a god, with little space inside but for the god and a few priests. It was not supposed to contain a body of worshipers. The public side of the temple was the exterior, the visible sign of the god's presence. With a church, however, the purpose was not to house God, whose presence was ineffable, but to house the congregation, the ekklêsía, the "assembly" that gave its name in many modern languages for "church" (which itself seems to be from kyriakos, "of the Lord"). The public side of a church is thus the interior, not the exterior, and the outwardly ugliest early churches often contain marvelous inner spaces, with rich decoration. These quickly become awesome spaces, as in Sancta Sophia, for centuries the greatest church of Christendom. Roman domes could do what most Roman temples did not try to do. As it happens there was a precedent for this. Hadrian's Pantheon in Rome is undistinguished and unremarkable from the outside yet contains a wonderful interior under the largest dome of pre-modern engineering. The dome of Sancta Sophia is smaller but used more dramatically. The Pantheon is essentially one large, really nice room. Sancta Sophia holds a vast space -- the 184 foot rise of the dome on its piers can easily contain the 151 foot Statue of Liberty.
Eventually, a form of church evolved that transformed the basilica into a building with a monumental external face and a monumental internal space. These would be the Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals, but it would be centuries before the technology could handle the spidery supports, of walls pierced with windows and held by buttresses, that both size and relatively lightness required. Then the basilica and the dome would be combined, to produce in the Renaissance the new largest church in Christendom, St. Peter's in Rome. But this would happen as culturally Francia surpassed Romania. The instructive comparison is with the practice in Islâm, where the purpose of a mosque was similar to that of a church. This can be seen in the Omayyad Mosque in Damascus, based on Syrian churches, which is all but invisible from the outside, hidden in the midst of the city, but contains two marvelous spaces, a courtyard and the lovely interior of the prayer hall, with mosaics as in churches of the time. On the other hand, a monument of the same era, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, stands conspicuously like a pagan temple, high on the Temple Mount itself. But the purpose of the Dome is more like a temple. It was built less for a congregation than for the Rock itself, commemorating the Temple of Solomon and the site of the Prophet Muh.ammad's "dream journey" to heaven. Finally, the Ottoman mosques of Sinan (c.1500-1588), based on the model of Sancta Sophia, produce the monumental Islâmic equivalent of the cathedral.
D. RETURNING TO THE WEST, 518-610, 92 years
565 AD
| 1. JUSTINIANS | |
|---|---|
| Justin I | 518-527 |
| Justinian I | 527-565 |
| Plato's Academy closed, 529; North Africa regained, 533; Rome regained, 536; end of dating by Consuls, 537;  Plague, 541-545;Ostrogoths defeated, 552; Council V, Constantinople II, Monophysitism condemned again, 553; Andalusia regained, 554 | |
| Justin II | 565-578 |
| Lombards Invade Italy, 568 | |
| Tiberius II | 574-578, Caesar; 578-582, Augustus |
| Sirmium besieged by Avars, Slavs invade Balkans, 579; Sirmium ceded to Avars, sack of Athens by Slavs, 582 | |
| Maurice | 582-602 |
| Slavs attack Thessalonica, 586; Avars defeated four times north of Danube, 599; famine, troops on Danube mutiny, 602 | |
| non-dynastic | |
| Phocas | 602-610 |
The arrival of the Plague in Egypt in October 541 was the beginning of an epidemic that cost the City of Constantinople alone perhaps 200,000 citizens. The percentages of people who died in the Empire may compare with those of the Black Death in the 14th century, though by then the population of Europe had grown much larger. Justinian himself contracted the disease, but recovered. There is no doubt that this was the Bubonic plague. The historian Procopius describes it with clinical accuracy, especially the characteristic swellings, the buboes -- a Greek word that Procopius uses, perhaps for the first time for this disease. But the Plague was not the only problem. The climate was changing -- this may indeed have precipitated the plague, providing more aggreeable conditions for rats and fleas. After what is now called the "Roman Warming," we get into the "Dark Ages Cooling." The tree ring record of 540 in Ireland is that "the trees stopped growing." Procopius said that, "For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during this whole year [536], and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear nor such as it is accustomed to shed" [translated by H.B. Dewing, Procopius, History of the Wars, II, Book IV, xiv 5-6, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard U. Press, 1916, 2006, p.329]. Other records give similar accounts. The dimness of the sun may be from increased, thin cloud cover, from changes in solar output, volcanic debris, or other causes. Whichever, the weather would be colder and the growing season shorter for some time. This would adversely impact the population at a time, on top of the deaths from the Plague, when the lack would gravely affect the fate of the Empire. Without the manpower to put down the Ostrogoths more swiftly and effectively, Justinian would devastate Italy in a way that would not have otherwise been necessary and that not been effected by the original "barbarian invasions" as such.
With the return of Roman power to the West, new arrangements of government emerge. Justinian abolished the dioceses. The effective Imperial governers of Italy and Africa are the Masters of Soldiers of the Armies of Italy and Africa. By the time of Maurice, the Master comes to be called the Exarch ("out-ruler"), and Italy and Africa themselves are each an Exarchate. 
Still the capital of Italy under the Ostrogoths, Ravenna becomes a Roman capital again, not of a Western Empire, but just for the Exarchate. Justinian lavished classic artwork on the city which survives until today. Indeed, the most familiar portraits of
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