ROME AND ROMANIA,27 BC-1453 AD
ROME AND ROMANIA,
the so-called Byzantine Empires; Princes, Kings, and Tsars of Numidia, Judaea, Bulgaria, Serbia, Wallachia, & Moldavia; and the Sultâns of RûmCaught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.William Butler Yeats (1865–1939), "Sailing to Byzantium"
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], even though the English language and its antecedents never existed within the Roman Empire (unlike the many modern languages directly descended from Latin). Nietzsche said, "The Romans were indeed the strong and noble, just as those stronger and nobler hitherto on earth never existed, never even 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; or shaving, which only seems to have been previously popular among the Egyptians. In some Greek cities (including Byzantium), it was illegal for men not to wear beards.
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, 
, 
. We see Michael Psellus in the 11th Century contrasting "the ancient and lesser Rome, and the later, more powerful city" [Fourteen Byzantine Rulers, Penguin, 1966, p.177] -- although Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (d.959) had previously referred to Old Rome as 
, "Great Rome" [De Administrando Imperio, Greek text edited by Gy. Moravcsik, Dumbarton Oaks Texts, 1967, 2008, p.86]. What most people would probably regard as an obscure and possibly unpleasant 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 -- sometimes the Latin word for Greeks would be borrowed, as Graikoi, 
, if this was needed for contemporary reference, as for the language. In 1354 Demetrius Cydones even translated the Summa Contra Gentiles of St. Thomas Aquinas into Greek as the Book against the Hellenes. Mediaeval Greeks, and the other citizens of the Empire, Armenians, Albanians, Vlachs, etc., were themselves always Romans, 
, Rhômaîoi, and the Empire was always hê Rhômaiôn Arkhê, hê Rhômaiôn Basileía, "the Empire of the Romans," or even 
, Rhômania, as in Latin. (See the "Note on 'Romania'".)
It is then natural that Classicists, to whom the Romans were the last people who proudly weren't Christians, would prefer the hostile modern neologism "Byzantine" for the continuing Empire, rather than pollute the memory of Augustus and Trajan with that of Justinian, Heraclius, or Basil II. Yet even Justinian wore no beard and was still speaking Latin -- and what Classicist will 
dare, and I dare them, to fault the others for speaking Greek? The very people, as it happens, thanks to whom we possess Classical Greek and its literature. Indeed, even Edward Gibbon, who actually called Mediaeval Romans (and he does frequently call them that) "a degenerate people" [The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume III, Modern Library, p.299], nevertheless, when speaking of the replacement of Latin by Greek in the Law, Court, and Army, referred to "the Greek, whose intrinsic merit deserved indeed the preference" [p.295, boldface added]. So we find that Gibbon was a Hellenophile.
Historians sometimes note the humiliation of the Greeks in being conquered by Rome, and sometimes the irony of the Romans admiring and adopting Greek thought, architecture, literature, etc.; but I have never seen the stark truth put this way: The Greeks inherited the Roman Empire. Why does no one say that? They must be thinking that those Christian Greeks are no longer really Greeks, who by definition were pagans. Of course, Basil II and Alexius Comnenus would agree. They are no longer Hellênes; they are Rhômaîoi. But if, to historians, they are neither Greeks nor Romans, what can they be? Oh, let's make up a word. They are "Byzantines" -- and we all know how nasty that is. But the Romans, who were the last Classical people who were not Christians, were also, as it happens, the first who were. Classicists, as with Gibbon's "triumph of barbarism and religion" [ibid. p.865], seem to choke on this simple truth.
A Western outpost of Constantinople like Venice long provided a pipeline of influence from Romania, even in little things, like the fork (the one for eating -- forgotten after the "Fall of Rome" and unknown among the Franks), which arrived there in 1004 or 1005. The Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204 (at the connivance, sadly, of Venice), and then refugees from the fall of the City to the Ottomans in 1453, rather crudely, but effectively, brought much of the heritage of the Roman East back into the hitherto poorer Mediaeval civilization of the West. Much remaining from the Classical world was lost, nevertheless, not with the Germanic invasions, the "Fall," and the Dark Ages, but in these later disasters. Sometimes only pitiful fragments were salvaged from them -- even as we see the Parthenon surviving intact until 1687, when it was blown apart by Turkish gunpowder. Thus, half of the literature described by the Patriarch Photius in his 9th century Bibliotheca is now lost.
Rome began as a City, grew into an Empire, Romania, in which the City lost its identity, and which then shrank down, in the end, to another City, that meanwhile had preserved and protected the heritage of the Empire. When we realize how much was preserved, in literature, art, and institutions, at Constantinople from the soi disant "Fall of Rome," it helps us realize how much Mediaeval Romania was, indeed, still the Roman Empire, just as they tell us. In an age when the politically correct fall all over themselves to say "Beijing" rather than "Peking" or "Mumbai" rather than "Bombay," it is extraordinary to find historians who not only do not call the Mediaeval Roman Empire what it was, but who seem to have even forgotten that "Romania" was actually its name in both Latin and Greek.
This is getting to be a large text file (516.2K, the largest text file at The Proceedings of the Friesian School), 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: This is the "Dance of the Knights" from the ballet Romeo and Juliet by Sergei Prokofiev -- I think it evokes the ponderous, ominous, and majestic character of the Empire. Despite the 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.
Google describes this file as, "A thorough investigation into the Eastern Roman Empire." Somebody has not looked at it very carefully. We begin here with Augustus. But I have in fact never seen a book or treatment of the Roman Empire that addresses it as an institution with a continuous history from Augustus to Constantine XI. Classicist "Roman" historians lose interest in the 4th century and throw in the towel in the 5th, while "Byzantinists" generally begin with Constantine. This is a
distortion due to modern prejudices, written by historians whom the Romans would have dismissed as "Franks." Some historians, e.g. Peter Brown or A.H.M. Jones, tie together "Roman" and "Byzantine" time, as something like a new discipline emerges around "Late Antiquity"; but a general sense of the continuity of the history has not caught on. The treatment that is appropriate would be the four imaginary volumes shown above left, where Roman history continues down through the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Classicists need only buy the first volume and need not pretend to care about what follows. [note]
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 names of persons, peoples, and places 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 among Byzantinists and Classicists but is, as Warren Treadgold 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 -- and in fact used to be the academic practice, as we see examples of almost all such Latinized names in older scholarly and popular work.
Since this page uses the Latin alphabet, and since the Roman Empire originally used Latin as its universal language, never forgotten in Greek Romania (however annoying or hostile contemporary "Latins" might become), it is the practice here. Some say that this is a "detour" through Latin, but that is the historic and customary route by which Greek words came into English, which is a historic language of Latin Francia.
Exceptions to Latinization would be, (1) for Greek words that simply have Latin translations. Thus, Greek Rhômaîoi, "Romans," corresponds to Latin Romani -- not "Rhomaeoe." Latinization will occur, however, when the Greek word is part of a compound. For instance Tsar Kalojan of Bulgaria was called the "Roman Killer," Rhômaióktonos. This would Latinize as Rhomaeoctonus. And (2) when Greek words are transcribed, not primarily for logical "use" in English (or even Latin) sentences, i.e. to indicate their referents, but to phonetically render Greek words from examples of Greek itself, as I have in fact just used Rhômaîoi, and Rhômaióktonos. The reference is thus first of all to the words, where we want to represent the Greek language (some of whose characteristics may be lost in Latin), rather to what the word (in Greek, Latin, or English) is used for. Transcription involves compromises. The practice elsewhere usually doesn't include accents, even through they are a proper part of Greek orthography -- and indeed were originated in order to write Greek. With accents, the use of the circûmflex to distinguish êta from epsilon and ômega from omicron (where the macron is not available in basic HTML) introduces an ambiguity; and where êta or ômega may otherwise take an ácute or gràve accent (which here have priority), another ambiguity is introduced. Issues of Greek pronunciation and spelling are examined elsewhere.
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. Other maps are not based on Tony's at all and may conequently look even less professional.
Dio Cassius (c.150-235 AD), Roman History, Book LXVIII, Translated by Earnest Cary, Loeb Classical Library, Dio Cassius, VIII, Harvard U. Press, 1925, 2005, p.369-371.
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.
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume I, Modern Library, p.1Index
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
Trajan was most conspicuous for his justice, for his bravery, and for the simplicity of his habits. He was strong in body, being in his forty-second year when he began to rule, so that in every enterprise he toiled almost as much as the others; and his mental powers were at their highest, so that he had neither the recklessness of youth nor the sluggishness of old age. He did not envy nor slay any one, but honored and exalted all good men without exception, and hence he neither feared nor hated any one of them. To slanders he paid very little heed and he was no slave of anger. He refrained equally from the money of others and from unjust murders. He expended vast sums on wars and vast sums on works of peace; and while making very many urgently needed repairs to roads and harbors and public buildings he drained no one's blood for any of these undertakings... For these deeds, now, he took more pleasure in being loved that in being honoured. His association with the people was marked by affability and his intercourse with the senate by dignity, so that he was loved by all and dreaded by none save the enemy.
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. Indeed, perhaps Rome did "fall" in the Third Century, if by the "Roman Empire" we mean a state ruled, controlled, and centered in the City of Rome. Somewhere between Decius and Diocletian, that was lost. The Emperors ceased to live at Rome, there was not much happening there that influenced events, and even the Army was mostly recruited elsewhere. The Empire decentered and turned inside out, something that popular discourse and even many historians have failed to either recognize or acknowledge.
| 1. JULIO-CLAUDIANS | |
|---|---|
| Augustus C. (Octavius) Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus |  30 BC |
| Augustus, 27 BC-14 AD | |
| defeat of Varus by Arminius, destruction of three legions, abandonment of Germany, 9 AD; Alexandrian Year, 23 BC | |
| 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; revolt of Boudicca, 61 | |
| 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 |
begins with Augustus becoming Emperor, Imperator, but that is not the case. Imperator simply means "commander," and this had long been in use with a specific meaning. An imperator was someone with a military command and imperium, which meant both military and civil authority in the area of his command. This made Julius Caesar essentially the dictator of Gaul, once he had conquered it. That was dangerous, indeed fatal, for the Republic; but in those terms Julius Caesar began the creation of the Roman Empire already as an "emperor." So, while we think of "Augustus" as the name of the first Emperor, it was simply a title, whose import was well remembered by subsequent Emperors. It accompanies the institutional changes that were effected or completed by Augustus. The institution thus created now gets called the "Principate," from Princeps, "Prince" (literally, "comes first"). The idea of the Principate is that the forms of the Republic are retained, and the Emperor superficially is simply still an official of the Republic. Augustus was not a king. He did not even hold the Republican office of Dictator, as Julius Caesar had. But Augustus otherwise assembled offices and authority sufficient to explain the power that he had actually obtained by force. In principle, Rome is still SPQR, Senatus Populusque Romanus, "the Senate and the People of Rome." This institution continues for some centuries, and there never was a subsequent question that the Emperor might become a King, as had been widely feared, expected, 
or desired with Julius Caesar. In time, the Emperor came to be regarded as superior to any mere king, as the reach and authority of many Emperors was indeed great beyond precedent or (local) comparison.
While it seems natural and obvious to take Augustus as the successor to Julius Caesar and his new Imperial government as the successor to the Roman Republic, there was another way of looking at this. The astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (c.100-c.170 AD), who was concerned about the dating of astronomical observations, laid the foundation for all ancient chronology with the Canon of Kings, a list of rulers beginning with the Babylonian King Nabonassar in 747 BC. The Canon thus starts off with Babylonian Kings (and some Assyrians thrown in), jumps to Persian Kings in 538 BC, to Alexander in 332 BC, to the Ptolemies in Egypt in 305 BC, and finally to Augustus, at the death of Cleopatra, in 30 BC. It continues to the reign of Antoninus Pius. These particular connections occur because (1) the Babylonians had the most advanced astronomy of their age, (2) Babylonian records continued seamlessly into the Persian and Hellenistic periods, (3) elements of this, including considerable data, had been translated into Greek, and (4) Ptolemy himself operated in Alexandria, where these translated Babylonian records were freely available, where Greek astronomy itself reached maturity, and where Ptolemy had at hand the simplest calendar of the Ancient World, the Egyptian 365 day year, which continued to be used in astronomy until the introduction of Julian Day Numbers. Thus, we have the curious mixture of an astronomer whose name is in Latin and Greek, who lives in Egypt, and who uses the Era of a Babylonian King (Nabonassar) in conjunction with the Egyptian calendar. This all is striking for Ptolemy's willingness to use the best of all that was available to him -- though it may still surprise some, as we now know independently from Egyptian records, that the astronomy of the Egyptians themselves, except for (or perhaps because of) their year, had less to offer than the Babylonian. Thus, Augustus may be seen as more than a Roman ruler, as, indeed, the successor to the universal equivalents of the eponymous archons (the Athenian officials used for purposes of dating) for all of Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and European civilization. From Antoninus Pius, the Canon could easily be continued with Roman Emperors all the way to 1453, using a clue of the numbering given by the Venerable Bede, who has Maurice as the 54th Emperor. Even the presence of the Latin Emperors present no anomaly, since Assyrian Kings were interpolated with Babylonian Kings. The last ephemeral Western Emperors, so important for the mythology of the "Fall" of Rome, were, of course, simply ignored by Bede. The Canon can then obviously be continued from 1453 with the Ottomans, who make for a succession in Constantinople in an even more seamless fashion than Augustus takes over from Cleopatra. The Canon of Kings, then, as a succession of Kings, will end in 1922, when no monarch conquers or replaces Mehmed VI. It is a moment, indeed, in the aftermath of World War I, when the idea of monarchy alone as a legitimate form of government, without popular and parliamentary qualifications, pretty much ends.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City contains the Temple of Dendur, which was relocated from Egypt and opened on display in 1978. This was built in the reign of Augustus, around 15 BC. The cartouches on the temple mostly just contain the hieroglyphs 
, "Pharaoh," which seems like a very perfunctory way of representing the Roman Emperor as King of Egypt. High up on the gate, however, I have noticed more complete names, only part of which I have been able to read: 
, glyphs that clearly spell out "Caesar." So there was an effort here, as with the Ptolemies, to Egyptianize foreign rule, and a final era of overlap between Ancient Egypt and the later civilizations that, through Christianity and then Islam, erase the ancient religion, culture, and then language of Egypt. What remains of all of those, with the Christian Copts, is under physical assault by Islamists in modern Egypt even as I write.
This map, for the year of the death of Augustus, is the last in the series prepared for the Hellenistic Age, the period that Augustus himself had terminated in 30 BC. Noteworthy are the surviving vassal kingdoms under Roman control: Armenia, the Bosporan Kingdom, Numidia, Judaea, Cappadocia, Emesa, Nabataean Petra, Commagene, Iberia, Thrace, and Palmyra. Edessa, at this point a Parthian vassal, will soon pass under Roman control. Palmyra will briefly play a signifiant role in Roman history in the Third Century. Armenia will often find itself pulled between Rome and Parthia, then Rome and Sassanid Persia, and subsequently several other larger political conflicts right down to our own day.
The Principate is the period that fits everybody's main idea of the "Roman Empire." Caligula and Nero, and Robert Graves's version of Claudius, are objects of endless fascination, moralizing, 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 silly 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 one of his armies (of three legions) was 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, and someone like Claudius could still dream of restoring full Republican government. 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 the state 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 Roman Army under Augustus contained 28 Legions (Legio, Legiones), not counting the Praetorian Guard. At some 5500 men each, this gives a full strength Army of 154,000 men. However, this does not count the Auxilia, units like cavalry and others that consisted of those who are not Roman citizens (though they gained citizenship from service). The entire Army, therefore, was more like 300,000 men, less than half of what it would number in the Late Empire. In his attempt to extend Roman power to the Elbe, Augustus lost three Legions at the battle of the Teutoburger Wald in 9 AD. The numbers of the lost Legions were never used again (likewise with the Legions later disbanded for rebellion). All the Legions were originally simply numbered. Once they begin acquiring epithets (cognomen, cognomina), like Legio X Fretensis, we start getting more than one Legion with the same number, but with different epithets, e.g. Legio III Gallica, Legio III Cyrenaica, Legio III Augusta pia fidelis, Legio III Italica concors, and Legio III Parthica. This is a little confusing. The logic of the matter is that eventually the legions begin to be numbered in relation to their cognomen, not in the absolute count of the Army. Thus, Septimius Severus raised legions for his attack on the Parthians (195 AD), which quite logically are numbered Legio I Parthica, Legio II Parthica, & Legio III Parthica. Eventually there would also be Legio IV Parthica, Legio V Parthica, & Legio VI Parthica, but these were not raised by Severans. We find all the numbers used up to XXII (Legio XXII Primigenia pia fidelis), but then Trajan raised Legio XXX Ulpia Victrix. I suspect that he used "XXX" because 29 Legions already existed, despite the numbers used.
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 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." Indeed, not just Christians Emperors, but Empresses and their children are shown with halos. This is not something that ones sees in Western Europe.
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.
| 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 | 161-152 |
| King, 152-143 | |
| 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, as of the basic attitude of Christianity to Judaism, thus became a matter of dispute. Where Christianity began as sect of Judaism, perhaps just a continuation of the Essenes described in detail by Josephus, some post-Pauline Christians wanted Judaism repudiated completely and the Hebrew Bible simply rejected. The most elaborate version of this turned up in Gnosticism, where the God of the Old Testament was reduced to a minor and malevolent deity. The "Jealous" God of Judaism was not regarded as having the right attitude to be the true Father of Jesus. The Orthodox decision in the matter was that the God of the Old Testament was indeed the God of the New Testament, the Jews were indeed the Chosen People, and that the Covenants with Abraham, etc. were not only valid in their own right but essential links to the New Covenant established by Jesus. No less an authority than St. Augustine said that Jews must 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. Now, Christianity granting a role for Judaism in Christianity is very patronizing to Judaism, but it did provide a ground for the toleration of Judaism, which no other principle at the time did (no one having heard of Liberal society). There were shameful exceptions to this toleration, but through the Middle Ages the overwhelming majority of Church authorities staunchly condemned attacks on the Jews. The Popes themselves even refuted, twice, the "blood libel" that Jews used Christian blood for Passover matzos (which would have been a grotesque violation of Jewish dietary laws anyway).
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 sixty 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 (with a population of a million or more people). 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.
I now see Lea Cline, of the American Academy in Rome (and evidently a graduate student in Classics from the University of Texas at Austin), saying that the Jewish population of Rome in the 1st century AD was probably about 30,000 people (I say literally saw her, on the Naked Archaeologist). The basis for this are records for the number of "synagogal communites" present in the city. Since, from records about numbers of bakeries, tenements, etc., the population of Rome can be estimated as at least a million people, this puts the Jewish population at no more than 3%. This sounds more like it, especially when the Jewish population of Rome is liable to reflect both an urban concentration of Roman Jews and the special concentration effected by the importance of the Roman capital itself -- Jews had been there since well into the Hellenistic Period. If it is impossible that the percentage of Jews in Rome could be lower than in the Empire as a whole, that gives us a good ground for evaluating the percentage given by Paul Johnson.
The maps here begin with Rome at its height under Trajan. Trajan's occupation of lower Mesopotamia was impressive but brief. After taking Ctesiphon, the Parthian capital, "he conceived a desire to sail down to the Erythraean Sea" [i.e. the Persian Gulf -- Dio Cassius, Book LXVIII, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard U. Press, 1925, 2005, p.415]. Sailing down the Tigris to "the Ocean," he wished he were, like Alexander, on his way to India, "if I were still young" [p.417]. Indeed, he would die within the year (117 AD). Visiting Babylon in order to sacrifice to Alexander at the place of his death, "he mostly saw nothing but mounds and stones and ruins" [p.417]. It had been long since Babylon had been an important city. Putting down revolts in Mesopotamia, it is not clear how much Trajan really intended to retain, since he installed his own candidiate for Parthian King (Parthamaspates) in Ctesiphon. In any case, Trajan had added upper Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Dacia to the Empire. This, as it happened, involved 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; revolt of Civilis, four legions disbanded, 69-70; Destruction of Jerusalem, 70; Fall of Masada, 73 | |
| Titus T. Flavius Vespasianus | 79-81 |
| Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, 79; Colosseum dedicated, 80 | |
| Domitian T. Flavius Domitianus | 81-96 |
| Victory of Agricola at Mons Graupius in Caledonia, 83; Dacian Wars, 86-89 | |
| Nerva M. Cocceius Nerva | 96-98 |
| Trajan M. Ulpius Traianus | 97-117 |
| Dacia conquered, 101-102, 105-106; Nabataean Petra annexed, 106; Armenia & Mesopotamia annexed, 114; Jewish Revolt, 115-117 | |
| Hadrian P. Aelius Hadrianus | 117-138 |
 Pantheon rebuilt, c.126; 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. This may simply illustrate the principle that goodness and peace, the height of the "Pax Romana," is boring.
Although most might not consider it an exception to the boredom, a minor event under Antoninus Pius was heavy with portent for the future. This was an oration given by a Greek, Aelius Aristides (117-181), of Adriani in Mysia, at Rome in 143 AD. Now called the "Roman Oration," in Greek it is the 
, "To Rome" [cf. The Ruling Power: A Study of the Roman Empire in the Second Century After Christ Through the Roman Oration of Aelius Arisides, James H. Oliver, The American Philosophical Society, 1953]. This speech is not of much interest to Classicists and is rarely mentioned in treatments of the Roman Empire of this period, yet it expresses profound changes that are in the works. Aelius is a Greek who now has become wholeheartedly Roman. There is not a trace of irony or cynicism in his praise of Rome. After achieving some fame, Aelius later became friendly, at Smyrna where he settled, with Marcus Aurelius. Since "To Rome" is in Greek, as was the diary of Marcus, we see a growth in Greek literature which will flower in the Second Sophistic and which will begin to overshadow secular literature in Latin. Culturally, Rome is becoming increasingly Greek, a trend that will culminate in the Graecophone Romania of the Middle Ages, where "To Rome" will be much admired and studied both for its language and style and for its patriotic sentiments. Neither of these is particularly appealing either to Classicists or to most Byzantinists, for the virtues of its language and its loyalties tend to leave both cold: Classicists are disdainful of Attic Greek unless it was written in the 5th century BC, while Byzantinists are uncomfortable being reminded that "Byantines" to themselves were still , Rhômaîoi, Romans. Aelius thus represents the sort of cultural and historical reality about Rome that does not quite fit in with the accustomed narratives and consequently is generally ignored.
The Pax Romana 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 (temporarily) the Guard.
When Jerusalem fell to Titus in 70 AD, 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. 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. 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 map shows the disposition of the Legions shortly after the end of the Jewish War. One Legion from the campaign, Legio X Fretensis, remains in Judaea, while the other two that were given to Vespasian at the beginning of the campaign, Legio V Macedonica and Legio XV Apollinaris, have returned to the stations on the Danube. Some sources say that there were four legions involved in the Jewish War, but I have found no indentification of what the fourth would have been. Britain, of course, has now been added to the Empire. My sources disagree on the station and numbering of some of the Legions. The revolt of Civilis in 69-70 led to the disbanding in 70 AD of four legions that participated in the revolt: Legio I Germana (or Germanica), Legio IV Macedonica, Legio XV Primigenia, and Legio XVI Gallica. These are indicated on the first map of the Army given above.
Of particular interest in the disposition of the Legions in the reign of Antoninus Pius is Legio VI Victrix. On the first map above, it is to be found in Spain. Next it is on the Rhine. Now it is in the North of Britain. In the reign of Marcus Aurelius the Prefect of Legio VI Victrix will be one Lucius Artorius Castus. As discussed below, this man and his name -- Artorius -- may figure in the legends of King Arthur. Otherwise, we see that Dacia has been added to the Empire. The concentration of Legions around Judaea again is in the aftermath of Bar Kochba's Revolt (132-135). Legion IX Hispana may actually have been lost in the revolt, or been disbanded for some reason in its aftermath. What happened is unclear.
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 aware that Iranians, which by then meant the Sassanids, were still 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 |
| Constitutio Antoniniana, 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.
An intellectual revival took place in the time of the Severans. This is called the "Second Sophistic," and in its most general form it represents a revival of Greek literature, and a concern for the Greek literary heritage, after a temporary eclipse by Latin authors. The Second Sophistic was actually named by Philostratus, in his The Lives of the Sophists. The presence and influence of Philostratus at Court was a function of the interests of Julia Domna, his patron. He says that Julia attracted a circle of mathematicians and philosophers. However, this actually meant something more like "astrologers and sophists," and the revival, as philosophy, was more of a retrospective on ancient philosophy than a movement that contributed much that was original or of interest to it. Nevertheless, such an inspiration and preoccupation has been compared to similar concerns in the Renaissance.
In retrospect, the Second Sophistic on its literary side is dated to the previous century, where we see a surge of Greek literature and a decline in Latin authors. It is not an accident that Cassell's New Latin Dictionary, of which I have the 1959 edition [Funk & Wagnalls, New York], only gives the vocabulary of classical authors from "about 200 B.C. to A.D. 100." Frederic M. Wheelock's Latin [Barnes & Noble, 1956, 1966; revised as Wheelock's Latin by Richard A. LaFleur, HarperResource, 2000] lists Tactitus (d.117) and Juvenal (d.127) as the last secular Latin authors. Their "Silver Age" is followed by "The Patristic Period," which lists Latin Fathers of the Church but refers to no secular literature and no secular authors in Latin until Dante(!). This implies that authors like Ammianus Marcellinus (d.395), Orosius (c.418), Boethius (d.524), and Cassiodorus (d.585), and Jordanes (c.551), were insignificant -- likewise for Isidore of Seville (d.636), who nevertheless is quoted by Wheelock (pp.211-212). But secular Latin authors did become rare after 100 AD. Ammianus, a Greek himself, wrote his history in Latin out of worry that the genre might die out -- as it would, indeed, with him. And Greek literature, in turn, flowers, as we get Plutarch (d.120), Arrian of Nicomedia (c.87-c.145 AD, Consul 129), Pausanius (c.150), Lucian (d.180), Aelius Aristides (117-181), Dio Cassius (d.229), and others -- who are never confused with or obscured by the Greek Fathers -- through the rest of the history of Rome and Romania.
A characteristic of the Second Sophistic, such as we see in Arrian of Nicomedia, the 2nd century historian, philosopher, and official (he repelled the Alans from Cappadocia), and the others, 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. And indeed, where Greek and Latin are taught today, the student, as it happens, begins with Attic Greek and Ciceronian Latin. The focus on Attic Greek in education, which began with the Second Sophistic, thus continued straight through the Middle Ages and has been in full flood through all of modern education in Classical Greek.
More than an affectation, this tradition accompanies the circumstance that the earliest and most interesting and some of the most important literature in these languages, especially for new scholars, is in the Attic and Ciceronian dialects -- from Thucydides and Plato to Caesar and Cicero himself. Preserving the archaic language meant that the authors could still be read in their own words.
These are the languages, our Classical languages of Western civilization, and their literature, that we do not want forgotten, if the root values and experience of our civilization are not to be forgotten. But their existence is 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. Latin used to be taught in my high school, but now it is not even offered in the college where I taught for 22 years.
One reason today for disparagement of the Second Sophistic may in part be the antipathy in academic linguistics for written language and unconcern for the preservation of the literary heritage embodied in Classical Languages. This may accompany a self-hating, anti-Western bias that is often evident in linguistics when the animus curiously tends to be focused on Greek and Latin rather than on Classical Arabic, Sanskrit, or Classical Chinese, whose preservation and use are generally exempted from criticism. The politically correct are happy to destroy their own tradition but sensitive (and cowardly) about doing this where accusations could be made of ethnocentrism, Eurocentrism, "Islamophobia," or racism.
The disposition of the Legions in the Severan Army now is looking pretty familiar. Warren Treadgold [Byzantium and its Army, 284-1081, Sanford, 1995, p.45] says that the Army of 235 AD contains 34 legions plus the Praetorian Guard. On the map above, I only show 33, as gleaned from maps in the sources cited. Treadgold estimates the total Army, legions plus auxiliaries, at around 385,000 men. In the sources given, the legions are only named by A.H.M. Jones [The Later Roman Empire, 284-602, Volume II, Johns Hopkins, 1986, pp.1438-1444]. Jones tentatively places Legio IV Italica in Mesopotamia, which would raise the total legions to 34, as in Treadgold. These are the last days of the Classic Army of the Principate. After the Crisis of the Third Century, the structure, constituents, and even command ranks of the Roman Army are going to be very different. The traditional legions persist by name, but they are absorbed into command structures where they eventually lose their old identity.
It is noteworthy that in my sources on the Severan Army, the Legions are named by Jones and by Adrian Goldsworthy in The Complete Roman Army [Thames & Hudson, 2003], but neither Goldworthy nor the other sources cited on the map give the locations of the Severan Legions. Jones places them in the text, in the context of the Army of the Dominate. Recently, The Roman Army, the Greatest War Machine of the Ancient World, edited by Chris McNab [Osprey Publishing, 2010], does not have a list of any Legions, so the neglect of the Severan Army is less conspicuous. But the McNab book is curious in that the "Later Empire" is dated to begin in 200 AD, right in the middle of the reign of Septemius Severus, even though in the text the discussion of the Later Army begins with Alexander Severus or Constantine [p.206]. Thus the period the Severans is, after a fashion, cut out of the history altogether. No source, except Jones again, bothers with the Legions of the Army of the Dominate, which mulitply in number and are smaller than the Legions of the Principate but whose identity often continues, even in the place of their previous posting, as with the Legio II Augusta and Legio VI Victrix in Britain.
So why the lacuna or the short shrift for the Severan Army? Well, it may be that Classicists are beginning to lose heart. Interest in the Empire declines, step by step, as we move away from the Julio-Claudians. The Antonines still draw a good bit of enthusiasm, with Marcus Aurelius and Commodus turning up in some Hollywood movies. But treatments like that are swamped by the popular representations of Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. And then, after Commodus, silence. Even the two hour History Channel special, "Roman Vice," ended with Nero, passing up the chance to treasure one of the most vicious Roman Emperors of all, Caracalla, and one of the bizarre, Elagabalus. Earlier popularizing authors may have shied away from the extremes of the behavior of Elababalus, who did things that used to be taboo in polite conversation; but that is no excuse now, when that should be one of the most appealing things about him. It is as though there is a sense of unease. The closer we get to Constantine, about whom feelings are so mixed, confused, and generally hostile, it is as though a force field begins to be felt that inhibits movement. The great drama of the Tetrarchy, with the extraordinary personalities and events involved, leaves modern historical fiction, and Hollywood, cold. The most that the public gets for the period are the tendentious, preposterous, and ahistorical speculations and misrepresentations of The Da Vinci Code. Even the straight historical treatments on the cable networks, which do remind us that people like Aurelian, Diocletian, Majorian, and Justinian at least exist, are usually no less tendentious, as I have occasion to note here. B. CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY, 235-284, 49 Years
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.
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.
| 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 |
| River Thames frozen for 9 weeks, 250; Decius & Herennius killed by Goths at Abritta, 251 | |||
| Trebonianus Gallus C. Vibius Trebonianus Gallus | 251-253 | Hostilianus C. Valens Hostilianus Gallus | 251 |
| Volusian C. Vibius Afinius Gallus Veldumnianus Volusianus | 253 | ||
| Aemilian M. Aemilius Aemilianus | 253 | ||
| Valerian I P. Licinius Valerianus | 253-260 | 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 | Valerian II P. Licinius Cornelius Valerianus | Caesar, 256-258 |
| Saloninus P. Licinius Cornelius Saloninus Valerianus | Caesar, 258-260; Emperor, 260 | ||
| Saloninus killed by Postumus, 260; 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 | ||
Valerian's son Gallienus then endured one invasion and disaster after another, with the Empire actually beginning to break up. Nevertheless, Gallienus rebuilt the army and, excluding Senators from legionary commands, put in place the generals who, although his own murderers, conducted the reconstruction of the Empire. He thus now tends to get some credit, even with the apparent collapse around him. Despite a short reign (and a natural death), Claudius II began to turn things around by defeating the Goths, commemorated with a column that still stands (but is rarely seen in history books) in Istanbul. His colleague Aurelian then substantially restores the Empire, only to suffer assassination, initiating a new round of revolving Emperors. This finally ended with Diocletian, who picked up reforming the Empire, militarily, politically, and religiously, where Aurelian had left off.
Amid all the other upheavals of this period, one that that escapes the notice of popular culture, and often that of historians also, is how the Empire ceases to be a possession of the City of Rome. The political structure of the Roman State turns inside out, with the City becoming a backwater and the provinces and the frontiers becoming the centers of political life. We begin to get the phenomenon of Emperors who rarely, or never, even visit the City. They certainly do not live there. For the time being, the equivalent of an administrative Capital of the Empire simply moves with the military camps of the Emperors. Once things settle down a bit in the following years, we begin to see new seats for the Court(s) and new administrative centers, from Nicomedia and Milan, to Antioch and Trier, Sirmium and York -- all culminating in the founding of Constantinople. Yet it is rare to vanishing to see this profound truth of Roman history ever asserted in a public voice; and we usually find even the historically literate laboring under the impression that the fate of the Empire hangs on events in the City, right down to the day when the barbarians burst in on the Last Emperor in 476. Of course, as we shall see, nothing of the sort happened in 476, and in fact nothing of significance happened at all in the City of Rome during that year.
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 first 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, whose arguments he gave in a presentation to the Emperor Diocletian, urging him to suppress the religion. But 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. Constantine would later order Against the Christians burned. 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,"Thus Constantine, an emperor and son of an emperor, a religious man and son of a most religious man, most prudent in every way, as stated above -- and Licinius the next in rank, both of them honoured for their wise and religious outlook, two men dear to God -- were roused by the King of kings, God of the universe, and Saviour against the two most irreligious tyrants and declared war on them. God came to their aid in a most marvellous way, so that at Rome Maxentius fell at the hands of Constantine, and the ruler of the East [i.e. Maximinus Daia] survived him only a short time and himself came to a most shameful end at the hands of Licinius, who at that time was still sane.Eusebius of Caesarea (c.260-c.339), The History of the Church [translated by G.A. Williamson, Penguin Books, 1965, p.368]
| 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 [the West] 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. |
Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), The Divine Comedy, Paradiso, XX:55-60 [Charles S. Singleton, Princeton, Bollingen, 1975, pp.224-225, translation modified], speaking of Constantine in the Heaven of Jupiter and of the "Donation of Constantine" (Constitutum Donatio Constantini) to the Pope -- a document later exposed (1440) by Lorenzo Valla (c.1407-1457) as a forgery.
Rome, queen of the world, thy fame shall never perish,
for Victory, being wingless, cannot fly from thee.Anonymous, "On [New] Rome," [The Greek Anthology, Volume III, Book 9, "The Declamatory Epigrams," Number 647, The Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1917, p.358-359]
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. Nevertheless, these were hard times, and worse lay ahead. 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 |
| Vincenalia, 20 year Jubilee, in Rome, only visit to City, seats at Circus collapse, 13,000 killed, populace hostile, 303 | ||
| 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 |
 St. Constantine I the GreatFl. 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 | |
| Conference at Carnuntum, Diocletian offered Throne, declines, appointment of Licinius, 308 | ||
| Licinius Valerius Licinianus Licinius | Augustus 308-324 East | |
| [Domitius Alexander] | Usurper 308-311, Africa | |
Emperor is elevated far beyond that of a mere official to a being with semi-divine status, altering the form of government from the "Principate" to "Dominate," from Dominus, "Lord." The Roman Court now begins to adopt the structures and ritual of the Persian Court, where the Great King has always been semi-divine. The symbolic accouterments of the Emperor, like the Purple (Porphyrius) robe and red shoes, become fixed until the Fall of Constantinople. The fiction that the Emperor is actually a kind of Republican official is now gone -- although the ultimate executive offices of the Republic, the Consulates, survive until Justinian. 
He is a Monarch in form and substance. This elevation was simply transformed, not rolled back or abolished, by the Christianization of the office. Indeed, Christian Emperors, beginning with Constantine, would always be portrayed with halos, like saints, and were called the "Equal of the Apostles." European monarchs never went that far.
At right is an extraordinary group in porphyry of the Tetrarchs. This was looted from Constantinople in 1204 and placed at a corner of St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice. Its origin was subsequently forgotten, and Peter Brown says it "was long mistaken for Christian crusaders, and even worshipped as statues of St. George!" [The World of Late Antiquity 150-750, HBJ, 1971, p.22]. Where it came from was recently proven when the foot that is obviously missing from the figure on the right was discovered in situ in Istanbul, before the Bodrum Camii (Jami-i, "its mosque"), previously the Myrelaion Church, in the original Philadelphion square [cf. Constantine, Roman Emperor, Christian Victor, by Paul Stephenson, The Overlook Press, New York, 2010, p.199].
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 Constantine). Although Constantius Chlorus became the senior Augustus, both of the new Caesares are apponted by Galerius from among his own supporters. This was improper and involved passing over the competent sons of Constantius and Maximian (Constantine and Maxentius), apparently because Galerius didn't like either of them. It is hard to know why Constantius consented to these proceedings, and they proved to be the source of fatal conflict in the Tetrarchy.
As it happened, Constantius died, and Constantine was presented by his troops as an Emperor fait accompli. Maxentius then revolted, dragged his father into it, and then at least co-opted Constantine to this development. 
By 308, Severus had been captured and killed moving against Maxentius, and Galerius had also failed to unseat him. Galerius then called a conference at Carnuntum on the Danube in Upper (Superior) Pannonia (just down the river from modern Vienna, Roman Vindobona). Diocletian was invited to the meeting was even offered the throne, but he declined it -- saying he would rather grow vegetables. The result of the conference was the demotion of Constantine to Caesar (again), the appointment of Licinius as Augustus, the second retirement of Maximian, and the declaration of Maxentius as an outlaw. The appointment of Licinius, who had never been a Caesar, was again an improper proceeding and reflected the custom of Galerius to use his own supporters, despite the implicit rules governing succession in the Tetrarchy. Constantine and Maximinus Daia were soon calling themselves Augusti anyway, and so the Tetarchy became a system of four equals, with Galerius preserving some precedence until his death.
A noteworthy act at the conference at Carnuntum 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.
Licinius was the presumptive Augustus of the West, but he never moved toward Italy or made any attempt to overthrow Maxentius. This was left for Constantine. Meanwhile, Maxentius had whipped up enthusiasm at Rome with the promise that, after a century, he would return the seat of Government there and would restore the withering Praetorian Guard to its status and privileges as the Life Guard of the Emperor. Enthusiasm faded, however, as Maxentius' status as a rebel isolated Italy and compelled him to raise taxes -- the City had treasured, as we might imagine, its tax exempt status. So Constantine was not unwelcome when Maxentius was defeated and killed. Constantine did, indeed, pay a bit more attention to Rome than the previous Tetrarchs; but then it would be Constantine (after Licinius had killed Maximinus Daia, and Constantine Licinius) who would found an entirely new Capital for the Empire at Constantinople. Rome itself would never return to its previous position, and Italy would continue to be ruled, as under Maximian, from Milan (and then Ravenna).
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 |
| St. Constantine I the Great Fl. Valerius Constantinus | 306-337 W+E |
| Christianity legalized, Edict of Milan, 313; Ecumenical Council I, Nicaea I, Nicene Creed, 325; Vicennalia, 20 year Jubilee, at Rome, Crispus & Flavia executed, 326; Constantinople, Roma Nova, founded, construction begun, 4 November 328; Constantinople dedicated, 11 May 330; Ulfilas consecrated Bishop to the Goths, 336 | |
| 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 |
| Altar of Victory removed from Roman Senate, 357; Amida on the Tigris falls to Persians, 359 | |
| Gallus Fl. Claudius Constantius Gallus | 351-354 E, Caesar |
| Julian the Apostate Fl. Claudius Julianus | 355-360 W, Caesar; 360-363, Augustus |
| Last Pagan Emperor; Restores Altar of Victory to Roman Senate | |
| non-dynastic | |
| Jovian Fl. Jovianus | 363-364 |
Sol Invictus, the "Unconquered Sun" of Aurelian and Diocletian. He may have imagined a sort of syncretism such as had been common in the old religions but that was not going to be tolerated in Christianity -- indeed, an element of syncretism remains in the name of the Holy Day of the week for Christianity, "Sunday," which Constantine himself called "the day celebrated by veneration of the sun itself" (diem solis veneratione sui celebrem). Even if Constantine banned blood sacrifice (it is not clear that he did, but is often said to have), this reformed a practice of worship whose critique went back at least to Heraclitus, who marveled how spilled blood, otherwise polluting, could be thought clean and sacred.
When Constantinople was built, the old acropolis was left alone. Indeed, it may have been left alone for much of the Middle Ages -- I am only aware of a couple of Mediaeval institutions in the area. One was the Church and Monastery of St. George of Mangana, which had a hospital attached. Another was a complex built by Alexius Comnenus with an orphanage and a home for old soldiers, the blind, and other disabled persons. It sounds like there was room for Alexius to build these institutions. In the Eighth century there is a reference to the Kynegion, an arena that survived from earlier Roman animal fighting shows. The comment in the Brief Historical Notes is that the ancient pagan statues in the arena still contain dangerous powers. A statue is supposed to have deliberately fallen on and killed a man named Himerios in the reign of Philippicus Bardanes [cf. Judith Herrin, Byzantium, The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire, Princeton & Oxford, 2007, p.123]. The astonishing thing is that any such statues should still have been there almost four hundred years after Constantine. In the same way, a statue of Athena is supposed to have still been standing on the acropolis when the Fourth Crusade arrived in 1203. Remarkably, this may have been the bronze statute of Athena Promachus which had stood in the open on the Acropolis at Athens, reportedly visible from out to sea, and was moved to the new city by Constantine (Anthony Kaldellis denies this, but without explanation; cf. The Christian Parthenon, Cambridge, 2009, p.106). The statue was finally only then thrown down because some thought that by her outstretched hand she was beckoning to the Crusaders. It is now hard to tell what may have been on the acropolis all that time because the site was finally put to a new use by the Ottomans, who built the great Topkapï Palace there. It is certainly the right place for such a building, and so one is a little surprised to learn that no secular building, as far as we know, was put there all the years of Romania. The impression is of much other Classical statuary in Constantinople. Thus, we learn quite by accident that a massive statue of the goddess Hera stood in the Forum of Constantine. The matter comes up because the Latin Emperors pulled it down to melt it for the bronze. Thus, the source of our information, the contemporary historian Niketas Choniates, consequently called the Franks "these barbarians, haters of the beautiful." Desperate for money, they treated much other art the same way, even looting the metal roofs from many buildings. (Unfortunately, when the Emperor Constans II visited Rome in 663, also needing money, he stripped the copper roof and bronze ornaments from the Pantheon and other buildings, unintentionally creating the precedent for the Crusaders!) Earlier, we get a similar revealing reference. Arethas, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia in the late 9th century, noted in the margin of his copy of the orations of Aristides (which we possess) that an ivory statue of Athena, mentioned by Aristides, must be the one still standing in the Forum of Constantine (like the statue of Hera) by the entrance to the Senate. He adds that across the Forum from this statue is one of Thetis, with crabs decorating her hair [N.G. Wilson, Scholars of Byzantium, Duckworth, 1983, 1996, p.124]. We have no clue about the subsequent fate of these statues.
Even the beginning of Constantine's attachment to Christianity is obscure. The story that he saw a vision of the Cross in the sky with the inscription Hôc Vince ("By this [sign, signô] Conquer") before (or during) the battle of the Milvian Bridge, when he defeated Maxentius in 312, comes very much later in hagiography (in the biography by Eusebius). 
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.
What Constantine was like as a person and what his motives were in favoring Christianity is now a matter influenced more by modern debates than by the historical record. In this, the evaluation of Constantine is much like that of the Egyptian "heretic" King Akhenaton, about whose real personality there is little historical information. Was Akhenaton a mystical dreamer? A fanatic? An earnest reformer? A cynical manipulator? Similar questions can be asked about Constantine. Especially noteworthy are projections of Protestant anticlericalism back onto Akhenaton (good -- attacking the power of the priests of Amon) or Constantine (bad -- creating the power of Catholic priesthood). 
Less strictly Protestant, but its ideological successor, is the New Age naturalism and rationalism that favors the Gnostics as true and proper Christians and views Constantine as an oppressor who built his oppressive patriarchal, supernaturalistic, and clericalist ideology into the structure of the Catholic Church. This leads off into farcical conspiracy theories such as we see in The Da Vinci Code [2003], where little effort is expended on historical accuracy.
In general, Mediaeval and Modern evaluations of Constantine are going to be broadly different. In the Middle Ages, Constantine, the initial great protector and patron of Christianity, was seen as one of the best of rulers, noble, good, wise, and pious. That he was made a Saint in the Eastern Church but not in the Western may have been due to a few too many murders in his resumé (his son Crispus, his wife Fausta, and his brother-in-law and co-ruler Licinius, who had been granted protection after his surrender) -- or to Papal disinclination to honor the founder of Constantinople, the seat of the Pope's Patriarchal rival. Nevertheless, we find Dante placing Constantine in favored glory in Heaven (The Divine Comedy, Paradiso, XX:55-60). His main complaint was that Constantine had made the Pope ruler of the Western Empire -- according to the fraudulent "Donation of Constantine " (Constitutum Donatio Constantini), a text used by the Papacy to bolster its claims to secular authority until exposed (1440) by Lorenzo Valla (c.1407-1457) as a forgery. Modern evaluations, in turn, may reflect the noted Protestant hostility towards the Catholic Church or the rationalistic critique of religion, and especially of its supernatural aspects, dating from the Enlightenment.
The modern perspectives provided little reason to view Constantine either with admiration or even compacency, with the potential for real hostility to emerge. Thus, a recent British television series on Roman history dramatized Constantine in terms borrowed from the Godfather movies [1972, 1974, 1990]. As we see Constantine piously reading to the Ecumenical Council at Nicaea the new Creed (the Nicene) formulated there, his men are off, in the best tradition of the Corleones, murdering Licinius (as they later would Licinius' young son, Constantine's own nephew). This seems to involve the judgment that Constantine was essentially a gangster, to whom religion was really no more than a cynical device in power politics. But before we get all weepy about Licinius, we should remember that in a bit of housecleaning he had murdered not only the wife, eight-year-old son, and seven-year-old daughter of Maximinus Daia, but also the widow, Prisca, of Diocletian, Valeria, the daughter of Diocletian and widow of Galerius (who, on his deathbed, had entrusted his old friend Licinius with her protection), her adopted son, and, just to be sure, the son of the hapless and probably otherwise forgotten Caesar and Augustus Severus. If Constantine executed this man, we might not exactly want to congratulate him, but we certainly cannot see Constantine's behavior as any worse. If Constantine was like the Corleones, this is no more than the way the Tetarchy worked, as least in its final stages. Right from the beginning, however, when Constantine, inspired by Christianity, finds success in battle, the principle has more to do with the ideology of Sol Invictus, who presides over military victory, than with the particular non-violent teachings of the "Prince of Peace." This might not strike many as very good Christianity, but it also true that Christianity never made pacifists or quietists of Christian rulers. Whether St. Louis or Abraham Lincoln, Christian rulers would always hope, like Joshua, for God's help in war.
Unlike Akhenaton we do have extensive contemporary comment about Constantine, as well as letters and decrees from his own hand. According to Diana Bowder [Who Was Who in the Roman World, Washington Square Press, 1980]:
Hot-tempered and generous, a man of action impatient with theological niceties or outraged by some flagrant example of oppression, superstitious like all his contemporaries but endowed with a grandiose sense of being God's vice-regent on earth, the founder of the Christian Empire is for us a vivid personality... A strong and effective ruler and reformer, he shares with Diocletian the main credit for the very existence of the later Roman Empire, and the long years of stable government in his reign made possible a genuine renaissance of civilian life and the fine arts. [pp.141-142]
Of course, his foundation of Constantinople made possible, 
not only the very existence of the later Roman Empire, but the survival of Romania there right through the Middle Ages, until 1453. Various details are noteworthy, such as the introduction of the gold solidus (called in the West the bezant), a coin that became the "dollar of the Middle Ages" and survived undebased from the year 310 until at least 1034 -- 724 years. This compares favorably with the durability of other historical coinage. The British Pound Sterling was fixed at 113 grains of pure gold from 1717 to 1931 -- 214 years. So Constantine's coin beats it in duration by 510 years. Not bad. This is a tribute, of course, not so much to Constantine, but to the conscientiousness of his successors -- and to Constantine himself to the extent that he substantially founded their regime. With Constantine's personality, it seems of a piece with that of his fellow Tetrarchs, and the biggest mistake one could make is to construe it in terms of later theological controversies or with retrospecive ideals, whether Christian or rationalistic.
There is an interesting variation in the pronunciation in English of Constantine's name. British usage tends to render the "i" as the customary long English vowel "i" -- the equivalent of the word "eye" or the first person pronoun "I." We could represent this as the "Constanteyen" Constantine. American usage tends to use the "Continental" version of the vowel "i," i.e. as in French, Spanish, or Italian. We could represent this as the "Constanteen" Constantine. Since in Latin "Constantine" is Constantinus (with all Continental vowels), we already have the French device of replacing the Latin case ending with a simple "e" which then becomes silent. While there is obviously no "correct" pronunciation in this respect, it does strike me as affected when Americans use the British pronunciation.
There is something else curious about Constantine's name. It is, as it happens, purely Latin in origin. The verb consto, "to stand firm... remain the same, unaltered," which gives us the English nouns "constant" and "constancy," underlies all the names of the dynasty: Constantius, Constantinus, Constans. The latter is simply the active participle of the verb. However, in Latin Europe, Francia, these names are only very rarely found -- except as variants, like "Constance," for women. In Romania, Russia, and Modern Greece, "Constantine" is quite common. We tend to think of it as a Greek name. To be sure, there were three Kings of Scotland named "Constantine," but this may have been based on the Gaelic element Conn, "chief," as in "Connor."
So why was "Constantine" in such disfavor in the West? Perhaps for the same reason that the Latin Church does not recognize Constantine as a Saint -- it represented a kind of challenge to the Papacy. Until the end of Romania, there were many Emperors still named Constantine in Constantinople (eventually eleven of them, and six Patriarchs of Constantiople -- as well as two Patriarchs named "Constantius"), none of them happy to agree to claims of Papal supremacy and authority. A Latin priest thus might not have favored the name of a child that might remind him of this conflict. There was only one Pope (708-715, and one anti-Pope, 767-768) named "Constantine," well before the age of exaggerated Papal claims.
Constantine's Empire went to his three sons, who might have shared it with their cousins, but killed most of 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 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WEST | EAST | ||||
Fl. Valentinianus | 364-375 W | Valens Fl. Valens | 364-378 E | ||
| Gratian Fl. Gratianus | 367-383 W | Commanders Magistri Militum | great earthquakes in Galilee, 363, in Crete, 365; defeated and killed by the Visigoths, Battle of Adrianople, 378 | ||
| Removes Altar of Victory from Roman Senate, 382 | Merobaudes (a Frank) | 375- 384 [384- 388] | |||
| Valentinian II Flavius Valentinianus | 375-392 W | Theodosius I, the Great Fl. Theodosius | 379-395 E | ||
| [Magnus Maximus, Macsen Wledig in Welsh] | 383-388, Britain, Gaul | ||||
| Revolt of Magnus Maximus, with Merobaudes, defeated by Theodosius I at Aquileia, 388 | |||||
| Valentinian II | continued, 375-392 W | Bauto (a Frank) | 384- 385/8 | ||
| Arbogast (a Frank) | 385/8- 394 | ||||
| [Eugenius Fl. Eugenius] | 392-394 W | ||||
| Revolt by Arbogast with figurehead Eugenius; restores Altar of Victory to Roman Senate; defeated at Frigidus River, 394 | |||||
| Outlaws taking of auspices from entrails, 384; Closes pagan temples, including the Serapeum, the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, and the Temple of Vesta in Rome, 388-392; removes Altar of Victory from Roman Senate; divides Empire between Honorius & Arcadius | |||||
Meanwhile there was a fateful development in the governance of the West. When Valentinian died, Gratian had already been raised to the status of Augustus and clearly was the legitimate Emperor of the West. However, the Frankish Magister Militum Merobaudes raised Gratian's young brother Valentinian (II) to the Purple. There was no particular reason to repudiate this action, except that it was obviously a ploy by Merobaudes to create a puppet Emperor. The success of this coup was a chilling precursor to the eventual Fall of the Western Empire, whose final Emperors became the futile play things of Germanic commanders. Merobaudes confirmed his disloyal intentions at the death of Gratian, when he threw his support to the usurper Magnus Maximus. Theodosius defeated and killed both of them at Aquileia in 388. Valentinian II's own death drew Theodosius west (again) to put down the usurper Eugenius -- who, apparently for the first time now, was merely the hand-picked figurehead of the German Master of Soliders, Arbogast -- another death knell for the Western Empire. At the Frigidus River in 394 Theodosius put his Visigothic allies, faithfully honoring their treaty with the Empire, in the forefront of the battle. The slaughter of the battle, on a scale with Gettysburg, soured the Visigoths on the value of their cooperation. They would soon become a loose cannon within the Empire, shattering essential supports of Roman power as the tribe rolled around.
Thus, things in the West went steadily down hill after Valentinian I, with a troubling weakness of the (Western) Throne in comparison to powerful Germanic soldiers. Although the Battle of Adrianople need not have fundamentally affected the strength of the Empire, it acquires great symbolic meaning in retrospect because of the more permanent damage subsequently done by the Visigoths and the profound weakening of the Empire that attended it. For the genealogy of the Valentinians, see that of the Theodosians below.
It is in the reign of Valentinian II that we find the classic De Re Militari of Flavius Vegetius Renatus, the most important study of military science for many centuries. This is often favorably compared to the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, but Vegetius provides us with a much more thorough and discursive treatment. Unlike Sun Tzu, however, Vegetius did not have the chance to direct armies himself, much less produce victories commensurate with the wisdom of his advice. Nor does he give us a military historian's analysis of the battles of his era, which would have included the Battle of Adrianople. This is a grave loss to history and military science, especially as it allows false lessons to be drawn from Adrianople (as discussed elsewhere).
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, 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:
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 and now in Japan in 2011 -- where, with live video from news helicopters, large ships were tossed some distance inland, and the draw down of the ocean was visible and photographed in Hawai'i and California. The response of some people in 2004 was to go out to collect the fish that were flopping around were the sea had left them stranded. The earthquake of 365 also came hard on the heels of a massive earthquake in Galilee in 363, whose effects can still be seen in walls that were thrown down in Petra, which may have been abandoned about this time. Damage from the earthquakes of 363 and 365 would have overlapped in Anatolia and around the eastern Mediterranean. The modern historian might do well to consider how the death and destruction of these great earthquakes 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 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]
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].
The map shows the key incursions that would fatally undermine the Western Empire. After the death of Theodosius I, and the division of the Empire (for the last time) between 
Honorius in Ravenna and Arcadius in Constantinople, 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.
| 1. THEODOSIANS, WEST | WESTERN COMMANDERS Magistri Militum | 1. THEODOSIANS, EAST | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 394-395, West | Fl. Theodosius | 379-395, East | |||
| Council II, Constantinople I, Arianism condemned, 381; Public penance for massacre at Thessalonica, ordered by St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, 390; Destruction of the Serapeum, 392; Abolition of the Olympic Games, 394 (?) | |||||
| Honorius Fl. Honorius | 395-423 W | Stilicho (half Vandal) | 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 Longest reign in Roman History to date | ||
| 421 W | |||||
| Honorius moves capital to Ravenna, 402; 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; backs usurper John, 423-425 | |||
| Valentinian III Fl. Placius Valentinianus | 425-455 W | Felix | 425-430 | ||
| Aëtius Fl. Aëtius | 430-432, 433-454 | Council III, Ephesus, Nestorianism condemned, 431 | |||
| Boniface | 432 | Marcian | 450-457 E | ||
| [Petronius Maximus] | 455 W | ||||
| Vandals invade Africa, 428, take Hippo, 430, repulsed from Carthage, 435; Suevi defeat Andevotus, Count of Spain, at the Jenil River, 438, take Mérida, 439, Seville, 441; Vandals take Carthage, 439; Visigoths provide troops for expedition against Vandals, and fleet of 1100 cargo & troop ships arrives from Constantinople in Sicily, but expedition cancelled, 441; Council IV, Chalcedon, Monophysitism condemned, 451; Attila the Hun halted at Châlons, 451; Aëtius stabbed to death by Valentinian, 454; Rome sacked by Vandals, 455 | |||||
Feeling exposed to the Goths at Milan, Honorius moved his Court to Ravenna in 402. This was a fateful step. It made Ravenna the capital of Italy for the rest of the history of the Western Empire, for the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths, and for the history of the "Byzantine" Exarchate in Italy, until its fall to the Lombards in 751. Ravenna was thus the capital of Italy for 349 years. This is usually overlooked in the tendentious narrative of the "Fall of Rome," as is the glorious art and architecture placed there, anomalously during what is represented as the "Dark Ages." The form of the Exarchate subsequently became the Papal States, from 754 until 1870 -- 1116 years. Ravenna thus possesses a significance in general history and art history that is rarely addressed in popular or academic culture. Unfortunately, the military strength of Ravenna's position allowed Honorius to view the course of the Goths in Italy, and their siege of Rome, with some complacency.
Some uncertainty remains about exactly when Honorius moved to Ravenna. Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis says:
At the time of the Visigothic invasion of Italy of 402, Honorius and his advisors seem to have felt that Milan was too hard to defend, and so the emperor moved to Ravenna; the first imperial decree to have been issued at Ravenna is dated December 6, 402. The year 402 appears in almost every modern account as a pivotal date in Ravenna's history, even though no contemporary authors mention such a transfer in that year. [Ravenna in Late Antiquity, Cambridge, 2010, p.46]
In a footnote, Deliyannis cites Zosimus (d.circa 501), who "mentions Honorius's change of residence to Ravenna as happening in 408" [note 12, p.320]. However, although she leaves the impression that the date of 402 is based on the imperial edict (from the Theodosian Code), the Chronicle of Theophanes positively asserts that Honorious "moved to Ravenna, a coastal city in Italy" in the Annô Mundi year 5895, i.e. 402/403 AD [The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, Byzantine and Near Eastern History AD 284-813, Translated with Introduction and Commentary by Cyril Mango and Roger Scott with the assistance of Geoffrey Greatrex, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997, 2006, p.117]. We do not know, of course, the basis of the assertion of Theophanes, writing in the 9th century. It may have been in the very same imperial edict, or in historical sources now lost. Nevertheless, the date of the edict is not consistent with the (perhaps corrupt) date from Zosimus.
With the Goths running wild, and an alliance of German tribes crossing the frozen Rhine on New Year's Eve of 407, the institutions were not prepared to bounce back the way Rome had in the 3rd Century. A characteristic moment came when the commander Aëtius, sometimes called "the Last Roman," who had defeated the Huns at Châlons-sur-Marne (Campus Mauriacus or the Catalaunian Plains, with substantial help from the Visigoths, whose King Theodoric I was killed), was murdered by the incompetent and jealous Emperor Valentinian III. Valentinian's own murder, as the Vandals symbolically arrived to plunder Rome, then left the throne completely at the mercy of the next person to get control of the Army -- who would be the German Ricimer. Ricimer could not himself, as a German, become Emperor, so he could only retain power by keeping the Emperors as figureheads, or killing them. This was not a formula for retrieving the situation. The Theodosian dynasty thus ends in the West with a combination of triumph, betrayal, and chaos.
One of the most interesting people in the diagram is the Empress Galla Placidia, the daughter of Theodosius I, wife of Athaulf, King of the Visigoths, wife of Constantius III, and mother of Valentinian III. According to J.B. Bury, she was buried at her own mausoleum in Ravenna, where "her embalmed body in Imperial robes seated on a chair of cypress wood could be seen through a hole in the back [of her sarcophagus] till A.D. 1577, when all the contents of the tomb were accidentally burned thourgh the carelessness of children" [History of the Later Roman Empire Vol. 1, Dover, 1958, pp. 263-264]. It seems that said children, holding a candle within the observation hole to look in, dropped it. It is remarkable that something of the sort had not happened earlier (as Howard Carter was lucky in 1922 that he did not drop the candle he held up, in the last days before electric flashlights, to first look into Tutankhamon's Tomb). The idea of an observation port into a tomb may seem strange, but there is even such a feature in the tomb of Sir Richard Burton and his wife.
Although the mausoleum and its decorations remain in excellent condition, some now question whether the Empress or any other Theodosians had ever been buried there. Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis says, "When Galla Placidia died in Rome, she was probably buried in the imperial mausoleum at St. Peter's"; but she only cites a secondary source for this -- and I am otherwise unaware that there was an imperial mausoleum at St. Peter's. She does conclude that the sarcophagi in the "Mausoleum of Galla Placida" (always given in quotes) were indeed fifth century products contemporary with the building, and were intended for Theodosian burials by Placida herself. Exactly who was buried there, however, was a matter of later tradition and legend [op.cit. p.82]. Deliyannis, however, does not even discuss Bury's assertions:
Into this charming chapel Placidia removed the remains of her brother Honorius and her husband Constantius, and it was her own resting place. The marble sarcophagus of Honorius is on the right, that of Constantius, in which the body of Valentinian III. was afterwards laid, on the left. [Bury, op.cit. p.263]
Bury, unfortunately, only cites secondary sources, while Deliyannis denies that there is any contemporary information about the burials, providing various versions of traditional assignments [cf. note 247, p.334]. We are thus left with more questions than answers in this matter.
Mosaics in the mausoleum already show the books of the Bible bound in codices (sing. codex), i.e. familiar bound books rather than scrolls. Scrolls continued to be current for some time -- mosaics at Ravenna include figures standing side by side where one holds a scroll, the other a codex -- and it is probably difficult for people to think of "Romans" using books rather than scrolls; but this is not the only case where general perceptions fail to keep up with the changing times of Late Antiquity.
This era of miserable collapse nevertheless contained instances of formidable intellectual development and important figures in the history of philosophy. St. Augustine of Hippo (395-430), whose name still evokes strong reactions even in our own day, and who died as the Vandals were besieging Hippo, still stands as the most prolific author in the Latin language, with 93 surviving works to his credit, not counting numerous sermons and letters. This is a positive embarrassment for Classicists, who are usually not very interested in Latin literature after 100 AD and who would rather think that the writing from Augustine's era was all by half-literate, ignorant, and bigoted Patristic Fathers writing in Vulgar Latin. Unfortunately for this conceit, Augustine himself, inspired by Cicero, was a student of Classical Latin rhetoric and taught it at Carthage, Rome, and Milan (the Capital, remember) before he ever thought of converting to Christianity. The study of Latin without the study of Augustine involves a certain self-imposed blindness.
As with Constantine, there are curious alternatives in the pronunciation of Augustine's name. By analogy with Constantine, we might expect the alternatives "Augusteyen" and "Augusteen." I have never hear the former ever used. The later is the vulgar pronunciation, especially as used for the city of St. Augustine, Florida. Scholars, on the other hand, in both history and philosophy, seem to prefer "Augústin," with a short "i" and the accent on the second syllable, contrasting with the first syllable for "Aúgusteen." I find this perplexing, since the short "i" violates the ordinary rules of spelling in both British and American English, where a final "e" almost always indicates that the preceding vowel is long. If this is an affectation, I do not know how or when it got started.
Meanwhile, another North African author, far less accomplished as a writer, nevertheless made an epochal contribution to the character of education in the Middle Ages. This was the obscure Martianus Capella. Capella, a pagan and apparently a practicing lawyer at Carthage, seems to have died before the Vandal invasion. His seminal contribution to learning, The Marriage of Philology and Mercury, created the system of the Seven Liberal Arts: the trivium (hence "trival"), of grammar, rhetoric, and logic, and the quadrivium, of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Capella even included a system of astronomy in which Mercury and Venus orbited the sun. This later caught the attention of Copernicus. Capella was popularized by Cassiodorus and hence made his way into subsequent education, such as with Isidore of Seville -- who, like Capella, is often called an "Enyclopedist." Capella, however, may not have been entirely original. In the East, where versions of the Liberal Arts were also taught in Greek education, the tradition was that a similar list went back to the Sophist Hippias of Elis. The idea of the Liberal Arts has now rather shrunk, and instead of including things like logic, mathematics, and astronomy, one might often think, given current academic practice, that only rhetoric remains (with grammar itself rejected as "elitist"). So one is left with the question, "Which attitudes sound more like the ignorance of the Dark Ages?"
Diocletian had begun creating a very different kind of Army in the Late Empire. The old Legions actually still exist, but they largely have been settled on the land as fixed frontier forces, the Limitanei, and the old legionary establishment has been reduced to 1000 men, with the number of legions accordingly multiplied -- for instance, only one legion had previously been stationed in Egypt, the Legio II Traiana, but there are eight by the time of the Notitia Dignitatum (II Traiana, III Diocletiana, V Macedonica, XIII Gemina, II Flavia Constantia, I Maximiana, I Valentiniana, & II Valentiniana, though this is not always the full legion). The frontier units are not shown on the map above, but their regional commanders are, the "Dukes" -- dux, "leader" (pl. duces). This is a title that will have a long history in the Middle Ages. The units that are shown on the map above are parts of the new Mobile Army, the Comitatenses, which were originally commanded by the Augusti and Caesares of the Tetrarchy -- hence, they "attend" or "accompany," comitor, the Emperors, as their "train, retinue," or "following," comitatus. An individual "companion" of an Emperor is a comes (pl. comites), or "Count," another title with a long history in the Middle Ages. In origin, however, a Count has a higher station than a Duke, the opposite of what we see much later. The sixth-century historian Agathias says that at one time the Army had a full strength of 645,000 men. This accords well with the data of the Notitia Dignitatum, which gives the whole establishment of the Army, apparently for the East in 395 AD and for the West circa 408 AD. Diocletian and Constantine, both accused of massively expanding the Army, thus produced a total force roughly twice as large as the Army of the Principate. In the map at right we see the Limitanei and the Comitatenses for the Western Army. It is noteworthy that some differences have developed between the organization of the Western and the Eastern Armies. In the West, the regional commanders of the Mobile Army are Counts. Britain features both a Duke of Britain, on the frontier, and a Count of Britain, with a unit of the Mobile Army. The Count of Illyricum is in the Western Mobile Army, but the Master of Soliders of Illyricum is in the Eastern. In the Western Army, above the Counts are the units commanded by the "Master of Soldiers," Magister Militum (or "Master of Foot," Magister Peditum), and the "Master of Horse," Magister Equitum, of Gaul. These are the commanders-in-chief of the Western Army (distiguished by purple color), with the Master of Soldiers becoming the effective "Generalissimo" of the Western Empire. In the Notitia Dignitatum the Western Comitatenses have a slight numerical superiority over the Eastern, yet it was the Western Army that seems to evaporate after 407, especially in Gaul, which on paper was the greatest strength of any formation in the whole Army. Unfortunately, the Mobile Army as often was used for civil wars as for backing up the frontiers, and it was natural for Emperors to neglect the Limitanei and reinforce their own personal forces. This did not work out well, especially when the Western Army became the personal force, not of the Emperors, but of a Magister Militum who soon was usually a German, like Stilicho or Ricimer. Gradually, the Limitanei fade from historical view and hardly seem to exist at all by the time German tribes cross the borders en masse in the Fifth Century.
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 is using a tradition of a numbered 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, 2000]. 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 ended up at Bremetenacum Veteranorum, south of Lancaster. The legion to which the Iazyges were assigned, the Legio VI 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].
There is no doubt that this was needed for the challenges of the Age -- indeed, it would prove inadequate to concentrate what would in fact be needed against the Visigoths and the other migrating German tribes.
In the map at right for the East, we see the Limitanei and the Comitatenses for the Eastern Army. The units of the Eastern Mobile Army all are commanded by their own Master of Soldiers, with two units as "Soldiers of the Emperor's Presence." Since there are two of those, one might think there is one each for East and West. However, they apparently operated together and were part of the Eastern Army. Thus, the unity of the Eastern Army was focused more directly on the Emperor himself, which may have helped the Eastern Empire avoid the situation in the West where the Emperors became mere figureheads. It is noteworthy that the Counts in the East, of Isauria and Egypt, are both in areas behind the actual frontiers. The Count of Egypt commands an army that from its size could easily have belonged to the Comitatenses. The Count of Isauria commands in an area known for rebellion. He has such a small force, however (Legio II Isaura & Legio III Isaura -- Legio I Isaura Sagittaria was with the Mobile Army of the East), the rebellions cannot have been too serious. Perhaps the problem was more like banditry. Nevertheless, this is where Leo I would draw recruits, including his future son-in-law and Emperor Zeno, to replace the Germans in the Eastern Army.
| 2. LAST WESTERN EMPERORS [names in brackets not recognized by East] | WESTERN COMMANDERS Magistri Militum | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Avitus Eparchius Avitus | 455-456 W | ||
| Comes Ricimer defeats Vandals at Agrigentum & destroys their fleet off Corsica, 456; deposed by Majorian & Ricimer, made a bishop, 456 | Ricimer (half Visigoth & half Suevic) | 456-472 | |
| Majorian Julius Valerius Maiorianus | 457-461 W | ||
| Vandals surprise & burn fleet organizing against them in Spanish ports, Majorian discredited, murdered, 461; Aegidius in Gaul never acknowledges subsequent Emperors | |||
| [Libius Severus] | 461-465 W | ||
| interregnum | 465-467 W | ||
| Anthemius Procopius Anthemius | 467-472 W | ||
| Joint E/W expedition against Vandals fails, 468; Anthemius captured in Rome & executed by Gundobad, 472 | |||
| [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 | |||
Henceforth, the Emperors were mainly puppets and operations were confined to Italy or the area of Arles in southern Gaul. More than the coup of Odoacer in 476, this signaled a real institutional change in the Western Empire. The German Ricimer would now hold the real power, with little better than figurehead Emperors. With Ricimer either unconcerned or distracted, the rest of the Western Empire fell by default to the Vandals, Visigoths, and Burgundians. A detached Roman pocket, intially under a commander, Aegidius, appointed by Majorian, remained in the north of Gaul until the Frankish King Clovis subjugated it in 486. Britain had been abandoned to illiterate mythology. Ricimer was once perusaded to accept an Emperor from the East, Anthemius, and to participate in another assault on the Vandals; but this was a disaster, and he ended his "reign" with another figurehead on the throne.
Gundobad, a nephew of Ricimer, the killer of Anthemius, and shortly to be King of Burgundy (where he would outlive most of his contemporaries), succeeded Ricimer and briefly had his own figurehead on the throne. This was the Count Glycerius. Gundobad acquiesced in the installation of a new nominee of the Eastern Emperor -- Julius Nepos -- and decamped to Burgundy.
As with the previous Eastern nominee, it is obvious that such Emperors only would have been effective if they had brought their own army. The first commander of Nepos, Ecdicius, was a son of the former Emperor Avitus. Ecdicius, however, was soon followed by a new commander, Orestes. There was now some difficulty, however, with the German troops of the Empire accepting a non-German commander. This problem reached a head when, rather than working together to get things organized again, Nepos was chased out to Dalmatia by Orestes, who assumed command and then put his own son, a child -- Romulus the "little Augustus" -- on the throne. The German troops wanted to be settled on the land in Italy, which Orestes resisted. So in 476, Orestes was killed and his son then deposed by the German Odoacer (who originally had been in the guard of Anthemius), who decided to do without a figurehead Emperor.
This was the rather anticlimactic "Fall of Rome." Odoacer even returned the Western Regalia to Constantinople. Nepos, meanwhile, was still in Dalmatia. Odoacer was rid of him by 480, reportedly (in the historian Malchus) with the help of no less than Glycerius, who on his deposition had been appointed Bishop of Salonae -- hard by Nepos in Spalatum. Since Odoacer, de jure, was a faithful officer of the Emperor in Constantinople, one could say that the last institutional existence of the Western Empire surived until Odoacer was overthrown by the Ostrogoths in 493. The real difference, however, had come in 456, when Ricimer gained control of the army. His long tenure structurally prepared the way for the demise of the Western Empire.
The pathetic and ephemeral "Little Augustus" Romulus, who wasn't even remembered as a Roman Emperor by later Mediaeval historians, such as the Venerable Bede, is now often dignified, with great portent and drama, as the "Last Emperor" (this would be 
in Chinese, where it could be used postumously for the last Emperor of a Dynasty, most notably the Ch'ing Dynasty). This is what we may get from writers who scrupulously, albeit fallaciously, remind us that the later Empire, when they are not calling it the "Byzantine Empire," was merely the "Eastern Roman Empire." They often forget the "Western" when talking about Augustulus as Emperor. The narrative is clearly that the Eastern Empire wasn't really Roman because to be "Roman" you need Rome, and Rome was in the West. That Augustulus never "ruled" from Rome, but from Ravenna, may then be forgotten as well. It would confuse the picture. The Last Roman Emperor must have been clinging to the Eternal City like a shipwrecked sailor to a raft. The best that can be said for this approach is that it is ahistorical, since for judgments about the Empire and Roman-ness at the time, the City was irrelevant. And, as we see from the cases of Anthemius and Nepos, the Eastern Emperor always retained some authority over who would be his Western colleague. The lapse of the Western Throne simply meant that authority over the Western Empire, however reduced or tenuous its existence, reverted entirely to Constantinople. The division of the Empire, which had never been more than a device and a convenience, despite the very different circumstances and institutional histories and fates of the two halves, lapsed and was completely forgotten -- until revived by Modern historians, who now don't understand what these f***ing Greeks were doing calling themselves "Romans." I fear that that is often about the level of their treatment.
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. In the Notitia Dignitatum, the commander of Roman forces in Gaul was the magister equitum, Master of Horses instead of Soldiers. Ordinarily, the Master of Horses would be a title inferior to Master of Soldiers. The title of the Master of Horse of Gaul, however, may mean that he was second in command for entire Western Army, a serious position indeed. Since the strength of the forces in Gaul was some 32,500 men, this reinforces that interpretation -- although we then wonder why such a force seems to have been so ineffective when the Alans, Vandals, and Suevi invaded on New Year's Day of 407. 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. 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. C. THE EAST ALONE, 476-518, 42 Years
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, 546 years after Caesar had completed its conquest in 56 BC -- or perhaps 531 years since the defeat and capture of the rebel Vercingetorix in 52 BC (to be kept and later executed as part of Caesar's own Triumph). We see Vercingetorix surrendering in the 1899 painting by Lionel-Noël Royer above. Now the dominance of the Franks would begin, and in time Gaul would take their name.
| 1. LEONINES | |
|---|---|
| Leo I | 457-474 E |
| First Emperor Crowned by Patriarch of Constantinople; Joint E/W expedition against Vandals fails, 468 | |
| Leo II | 473-474 E |
| Zeno the Isaurian (Tarasikodissa) | 474-491 E+W |
| Acacian Schism, 484-519 | |
| [Basiliscus] | 475-476 E |
| Fire in Constantinople, destroys Basilica or Imperial Stoa Library, founded by Julian, of 120,000 volumes, and statuary, including the Aphrodite of Cnidus, 475 | |
| 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, apart from the perfunctory addition of "Flavius" to many names -- and occasonally, we get a blast, as with Justinian, of multiple names. Amazing how well the Flavian gens survives over the centuries! 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 aleady look like the pro forma 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 |
| End of Acacian Schism, 519; earthquake at Antioch, 526 | |
| St. Justinian I Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus, Peter Sabbataeus | 527-565 |
Plato's Academy closed, 529; Nika Revolt, 532; North Africa regained from Vandals, 533; Rome regained, 536; end of dating by Consuls, 537;  Plague, 541-545; silkworm eggs arrive from China, 550; Ostrogoths defeated, 552; Council V, Constantinople II, Monophysitism condemned again, 553; Andalusia regained from Visigoths, 554; defeat of Bulgars & Slavs by Belisarius, 559 | |
| 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, Maurice & family murdered, 602 | |
| non-dynastic | |
| Phocas | 602-610 |
| Column of Phocas, last Imperial monument in the Forum of Rome, 608 | |
Meanwhile Justinian had built the greatest church in Christendom, Sancta Sophia [note], codified Roman Law, and driven the last pagans, at Plato's Academy, out of business. This all wore out the Empire, but it could easily have recovered to new strength if further blows had not fallen. The Lombards invaded Italy in 568; and although they were unable to secure the whole peninsula, or the major cities (except in the Po valley), they became a source of constant conflict for most of the next two hundred years. Meanwhile, the Danube frontier had become very insecure. As early as 540 (again) Bulgars and Slavs were raiding into the Balkans. Maurice not only restored the frontier but crossed it to apply the "forward defense" of the Early Empire. Unfortunately, this hard campaigning became unpopular with the troops; and in 602 they murdered Maurice and his whole family. Under Phocas, things began to unravel. The Persians began the campaign that would net them the Asiatic part of the Empire, recreating the Persia of the Achaeminids, and the Danube frontier collapsed so completely that it would not be restored for almost four hundred years.
Belisarius was the Duke of Marlbourgh of the 6th Century. There are several points of comparison. First, for the military genius of both of them, although Marlbourgh may have been more consistently successful, as Belisarius suffered some defeats and inconclusive campaigns. Second, just as Sarah Churchill was for long the close friend of Queen Anne, Belisarius' wife Antonina was similarly close to the Empress Theodora. Unlike Sarah, however, Antoninia was rumored to be unfaithful to Belisarius, and her relationship with Theodora does not seem to have soured as did Sarah's with Anne. 
Third, as Anne eventually turned on Sarah and then the Duke, Justinian was sometimes suspicious of Belisarius and withdrew his support. In 562 Belisarius was tried and imprisoned for "corruption," in what was certainly a political prosecution. Justinian then pardoned him, but the legend arose later that Justinian had blinded Belisarius and reduced him to begging. This would have been more extreme than what happened to Malborough; but since it does not seem to have been true, Malborough's prosecution and exile looks like the worse betrayal. The story of Justinian, Belisarius, and their wives is confused by the spleen of Procopius, whose Secret History vents his inexplicable animus against them all. Perhaps more historians, writing about their patrons, feel this way but never express it. All of this, however, provides considerable grist for historical fiction, in which Belisarius and the others have often figured. Nevertheless, Belisarius is still not as well known as other generals in history, and the intrigues of Justinian's court, especially with strong and vivid women like Theodora, do not seem to have drawn the dramatic attention that one might expect -- perhaps because of a general neglect and estrangement from the Mediaeval history of Romania. Even so, television viewers of the popular series NCIS see the name of Belisarius every week, in the "Belisarius Productions" title of creator Donald Bellisario, whose name, of course, itself recalls that of the great general.
As noted above, when the treasures taken by Titus from Herod's Temple in Jerusalem were recovered from the Vandals in 533, 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 then 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 would have been 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 were said to have helped the Persians (some question this, since the Persians were persecuting their own Jews), 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 an incredible character. The great Menôrâh of the Temple, described in detail by Josephus and shown on the Arch of Titus, 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. One possibility concerns Procopius' reference to "the sanctuaries of the Christians." This could mean all sorts of things and generally has been interpreted at referring to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. However, Justinian himself was building a large new church in Jerusalem, which actually came to the called the "New," Nea, Church. This was later demolished by the Arabs, but its substructure survives under the Jewish Quarter of Jersualem. That substructure includes a vast cistern, such as Justinian also built in Constantinople. This has suggested to some that crypts of the church may also survive, possibly with items like Temple treasures, which might have been hidden from both Persian and Arab invasions. By the time the Templars arrived in Jerusalem, they might not even have been aware that the Nea Church had existed -- the cistern was only discovered by Israeli archaeologists after 1967. It seems like a thin hope, but since the Arabs don't report finding any Temple treasures, and no Jewish source mentions taking possession of them, the Nea Church is the sole remaining lead.
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 black 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. Indeed, ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland show a sharp spike in volcanic gasses in 535. It is of such magnitude as to indicate a major eruption. Since the eruption of Mt. Tambora in 1815 resulted in a "year without summer," it is not hard to imagine the eruption of one of the major Indonesian volcanoes (or elsewhere; the source of the volcanic signature has not been identified) producing similar results for 535-536. It is not clear that the eruption alone would produce the effects seen over many years, for the weather would be colder and the growing season shorter for some time (as noted for 540). The eruption may have reinforced what was already a cooling trend. Whatever the cause, the climate 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 devastated Italy in a way that would not have otherwise been necessary and that had not been effected by the original "barbarian invasions" as such. Rome was briefly depopulated, not by the Visigoths in 410 or by the Vandals in 455, and certainly not by the Ostrogoths in 493, but by the more than decade of fighting that it took for the Roman reconquest, when the city changed hands at least three times and the aqueducts were cut in sieges.
Before Justinian launched Belisarius into the West, there was the noteworthy disturbance of the Nika Revolt in 532. This began in the Hippodrome and was named after the call for victory -- Nika! Nika! -- of the chariot racing factions, the Blues and the Greens. There was considerable unhappiness about the efficiency with which Justinian's officials had been collecting taxes. The revolt and riots, through looting and fire, destroyed a good part of the city, including the old church of Sancta Sophia. Justinian was ready to flee, until Theodora put some spine into him. Excusing herself, a woman, for reminding the men of courage, she is supposed to have said, 
"the Purple makes the noblest shroud." Unfortunately, like many other famous quotes in history, this is not quite right. According to Procopius, Theodora said, "Royalty [basileía] is a beautiful shroud" [Procopius, History of the Wars, I, Book I, xxiv 37-38, translated by H.B. Dewing, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard U. Press, 1914, 2001, p.232-233]. In the same speech however, she did say, "I will not be separated from this Purple" -- halourgís, specifically a purple robe [p.230-231 -- see the grammar of this statement]. The traditional misquotation thus deftly combines two actual quotations. This is one of the most famous statements ever about the "Purple" -- i.e. the Tyrian Purple, Porphýra, of Roman Imperial Robes -- although we also have the kind of stone, Porphyry, that was used in association with the Throne, both for statues of the Emperors and for structures like the lying-in pavillion for pregnant Empresses. Justinian, thus encouraged, or shamed, put down the revolt. Belisarius surrounded the Hippodrome and massacred everyone in it (perhaps 30,000 people!). Because of the damage done to the City, Justinian launched ambitious building projects, including that for the magnificient new Sancta Sophia.
Around the year 550 we hear that a couple of Nestorian monks arrive from China with an interesting cargo. For all the earlier centuries of the Roman Empire, Romans had sent gold East through Central Asia and received back silk, the nature of which they were entirely ignorant. The route of this trade became known as the the "Silk Road." From Roman authors we hear nothing about the destination of the gold or the source of the silk. From the Chinese history of the Later Han Dynasty, however, as noted above, we hear that a Roman embassy arrived in China in 166 AD, specifically to try and arrange an alternate route for the silk trade. This was never worked out.
| Exarchs of Ravenna | |
|---|---|
| Decius | 584-585 |
| Smaragdus | 585-589, 603-611 |
| Romanus | 589-598 |
| Callinicus | 598-603 |
| John I Lemigius | 611-615 |
| Eleutherius | 616-619, d.620 |
| Isaac | 625-643 |
| Theodore I Calliopas | 643-c.645, 653-c.666 |
| Plato | c.645-649 |
| Olympius | 649-652 |
| Gregory | c.666-678 |
| Theodore II | 678-687 |
| John II Platinus | 687-702 |
| Theophylactus | 702-710 |
| John III Rizocopo | 710-711 |
| Entichius | 711-713 |
| Scholasticus | 713-726 |
| Paulicius | 723-727 |
| Tax Revolt in Italy, Exarch Paulicius assassinated, first Doge of Venice, 727 | |
| Eutychius | 728-751 |
| Ravenna falls to Lombards, 751 | |
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 Justinian and Theodora are from mosaics in the Church of San Vitale. The Exarchate continued until the fall of the city to the Lombards in 751. The list of Exarchs, from the time of Maurice to the Lombard conquest, covers 167 years -- the time from George Washington to Dwight Einsenhower.
In Africa, the Exarchate was centered at Carthage, which enters its last phase as a player in Roman history. With less to show for its life in this period, the city fell to the Arabs in 698. Afterwards, Carthage itself, although not deliberately destroyed as the Romans once did, simply fades from history. Nearby Tunis becomes the local metropolis -- perhaps in line with the Arab policy seen elsewhere of withdrawing capitals away from the immediate coast, although Tunis is nowhere near as removed as, for instance, Cairo (Fust.ât.). I have not found anything like a complete list of the Exarchs of Carthage, although we know that the father of the Emperor Heraclius was Exarch when Heraclius sailed East to overthrow Phocas in 610.
The office of the Roman Consuls, the chief executive officers of the Roman Republic, and dating by them, continued under the Empire until Justinian, who now replaces them with dating by Regal years. They can be examined on a popup page. As the end of an institution that began at the very beginning of the Republic, it is hard to exaggerate the symbolic importance of this event. The Roman state is now a monarchy in every detail.
| 3. GHASSANIDS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Jafnah I ibn Amr | 220-265 | ||
| 'Amr I ibn Jafnah | 265-270 | ||
| Tha'labah ibn Amr | 270-287 | ||
| al-Harith I ibn Th'alabah | 287-307 | ||
| Jabalah I ibn al-Harith I | 307-317 | ||
| al-Harith II ibn Jabalah "ibn Maria" | 317-327 | ||
| al-Mundhir I Senior ibn al-Harith II | 327-330 | al-Aiham ibn al-Harith II | 327-330 |
| al-Mundhir II Junior ibn al-Harith II | 327-340 | al-Nu'man I ibn al-Harith II | 327-342 |
| Jabalah II ibn al-Harith II | 327-361 | 'Amr II ibn al-Harith II | 330-356 |
| Jafnah II ibn al-Mundhir I | 361-391 | ||
| al-Nu'man II ibn al-Mundhir I | 361-362 | ||
| al-Nu'man III ibn 'Amr ibn al-Mundhir I | 391-418 | ||
| Jabalah III ibn al-Nu'man | 418-434 | ||
| al-Nu'man IV ibn al-Aiham | 434-455 | al-Harith III ibn al-Aiham | 434-456 |
| al-Nu'man V ibn al-Harith | 434-453 | ||
| al-Mundhir II ibn al-Nu'man | 453-472 | ||
| 'Amr III ibn al-Nu'man | 453-486 | Hijr ibn al-Nu'man | 453-465 |
| al-Harith IV ibn Hijr | 486-512 | ||
| Jabalah IV ibn al-Harith | 512-529 | ||
| al-Harith V ibn Jabalah | 529-569 | ||
| Roman subsidy, 529; nominates Jacob Baradaeus as Bishop of Edessa, 542; defeats Lakhmids, 554; end of Roman subsidies, 563 | |||
| al-Mundhir III ibn al-Harith | 569-581 | Abu Kirab al-Nu'man ibn al-Harith | 570-582 |
| al-Nu'man VI ibn al-Mundhir | 582-583 | ||
| al-Harith VI ibn al-Harith | 583 | al-Nu'man VII ibn al-Harith Abu Kirab | 583-? |
| direct Roman rule, 584-before 614; Persian invasion and occupation, 614-628 | |||
| al-Aiham ibn Jabalah | ?-614 | ||
| al-Mundhir IV ibn Jabalah | 614-? | ||
| Sharahil ibn Jabalah | ?-618 | ||
| Amr IV ibn Jabalah | 618-628 | ||
| Jabalah V ibn al-Harith | 628-632 | ||
| Jabalah VI ibn al-Aiham | 632-638 | ||
| Arab Conquest, 638 | |||
In the time of Justinian the Ghassanids became organized enough to be called a "kingdom" by historians, and they become an important part of Roman frontier defense in 529 when Justinian replaces the earlier Roman clients, the Salihids, with the Ghassanid al-Harith V, now the official Roman phylarch or ruler of the tribe (phylum). Such client kingdoms might be said to represent the first entry of the Arabs into Mediterranian history. If they constitute a pre-Islamic move north of Arab people, then both the Romans and the Persians converted the threat of nomadic encroachment into elements of the pre-existing balance of power between Romania and Persia. For the Persians, indeed, had their own client Arab tribe, the Lakhmids, who occupied the hinterland west of the Euphrates. The rivalry between Ghassanids and Lakhmids was not just as proxies for the Powers, but, as can be imagined, the two tribes had become rivals anyway, and there was also a religious dimension. The Ghassanids were Christians, and the Lakhmids had remained pagan.
While the religion of the Ghassanids in general would be expected to be a unifying factor with respect to Rome, there developed a difficulty. The Ghassanids became Monophysites. Indeed, when al-Harith V nominated Jacob Baradaeus Bishop of Edessa, it led to the takeover of the Syrian Orthodox Church, henceforth the "Jacobite" Church, by Monophysites. This was not something that Justinian would let stand in the way of sensible policy, but he nevertheless made one crucial mistake. When al-Harith defeated the Lakhmids in 554, Justinian, chronically short of money, discontinued his subsidy to the Ghassanid ruler. This may also have happened because Justinian had just obtained the means of growing Silk -- silkworm eggs smuggled out of the Central Asia. This rendered the Arabian border and Arabia less important for Rome as a means of circumventing Persian control of the silk trade. The discontent of the Ghassanids with this dismissal of their importance would be magnified when later Emperors began a harassment like that inflicted on the Monophysite Coptic and the Syrian Orthodox Churches. Since the Ghassanids were rather like the keystone in the defensive arch based on Egypt and Syria, the disaffection of these populations seriously weakened the Roman frontier. This was already evident during the Persian invasion of 614-628, and nothing had been done to heal it by the time of the 
Arab invasion of 636. Soon the Ghassanids converted to Islam and disappeared from history.
The list here is entirely from Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies. An extensive discussion of the Ghassanids can be found in Justinian's Flea by William Rosen [Viking, 2007, pp. 242, 303, 306, & 318]. Despite the treatment of the Ghassanids in many Byzantine histories, which often give rulers of related states, I have not seen a list in any history. Since the names of the Ghassanids include the familiar Arabic patronynmic element, ibn, the genealogy of the dynasty could actually be constructed without too much difficulty. It will also be noted that brothers often rule simultaneously, as with the several sons of al-Harith II who begin ruling in 327. Al-Harith II himself, with the epithet "ibn Maria" and living in the time of Constantine, is likely to be the tribal chief who converted to Christianity.
III. THIRD EMPIRE, MIDDLE "ROMANIA,"
O, great-ruling [New] Rome, thou lookest from Europe
on a prospect in Asia the beauty of which is worthy of thee.Marianus Scholasticus, "On the Palace called Sophianae," [The Greek Anthology, Volume III, Book 9, "The Declamatory Epigrams," Number 657, The Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1917, p.364-365]
The Constantinopolitan city, which formerly was called Byzantium and now New Rome, is located amidst very savage nations. Indeed it has to its north the Hungarians, the Pizaceni, the Khazars, the Russians, whom we call Normans by another name, and the Bulgarians, all very close by; to the east lies Baghdad; between the east and the south the inhabitants of Egypt and Babylonia; to the south there is Africa and that island called Crete, very close to and dangerous for Constantinople. Other nations that are in the same region, that is, the Armenians, Persians, Chaldeans, and Avasgi, serve Constantinople. The inhabitants of this city surpass all these people in wealth as they do also in wisdom.
Liutprand of Cremona (c.920-972), 949 AD, "Retribution," The Complete Works of Liudprand of Cremona, translated by Paolo Squatriti [The Catholic Press of America, 2007, p.50].
Romania has suffered most terrible evils from the Arabs even until now.
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (d.959) quoting the Chronicle of Theophanes (c.815) [De Administrando Imperio, Greek text edited by Gy. Moravcsik, Dumbarton Oaks Texts, 1967, 2008, p.94]
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), "Sailing to Byzantium," alluding to the mechanical birds reported by Liutprand at the Macedonian court.
To most people thinking of the "Roman Empire," we are well into terra incognita here. Yet in 610 the character and problems of the Roman Empire would not have been unfamiliar to Theodosius the Great. A Persian invasion was nothing new. How far it got, all the way to Egypt and the Bosporus, was. Meanwhile, the collapse of the Danube frontier was not now the doing of Germans but of Slavs and Steppe people -- the latter beginning with the Altaic Avars, whose kin would dominate Central Asia in the Middle Ages. The Persians were miraculously defeated; but before the Danube could be regained or the Lombards overcome in Italy, a Bolt from the Blue changed everything. The Arabs, bringing a new religion, Islâm, created an entirely new world, which both broke the momentum of Roman recovery and divided the Mediterranean world in a way whose outlines persist until today. Nevertheless, the Empire, restricted to Greece and Anatolia, rode out the flood. It must have been a hard nut, since the Arab Empire otherwise flowed easily all the way to China and the Atlantic. It was hard enough, indeed, that by the end of the "Third Empire" it had been in better health than any Islamic state. The promise of new ascendency, however, was brief, both for internal and external reasons. 
Meanwhile, there has been a cost paid, as we might expect, in prosperity and material culture. This is conspicuous in the coinage, where the previous style of low relief profile portraits is still typical in Justinian's day. However, we also start to get face on portraits, whose quality is less good. By the time of Heraclius, face on portraits are dominant, and soon exclusive, while their character ceases to be low relief and becomes cartoonish. This will improve again later, but the coinage will never have the photo-real quality that we expect in modern coinage and that was often present in the best work of the First Empire. That the gold coinage of the solidus still exists at all, however, is testimony to the fact that the prosperity and material culture of Romania never fell as far as it did in Francia.
A. THE ADVENT OF ISLAM, 610-802, 192 years
| 1. HERACLIANS | |
|---|---|
| Heraclius | 610-641 |
| conquest of Mesopotamia, 607-610, Syria, 611-613, Palestine & Jerusalem, 614, Egypt, 616, & invasion of Anatolia, 626, by Shâh Khusro II; his defeat, 622-628; Salona destroyed by Avars, residents move to Spalatum, 620; Cartagena falls to Visigoths, 624; Avar Siege of Constantinople, Aqueduct of Valens broken, 626; Battle of Nineveh, Persians defeated, 627; True Cross returned to Jerusalem, 630; forced baptism of Jews, 632; occupation of Armenia, 633; Arab invasion, 634; Army of the East destroyed, Battle of Yarmûk, Syria evacuated, 636; fall of Gaza, Antioch, 637; Jerusalem surrendered to the Caliph 'Umar, 638; proclaimation of Monotheletism 638; Egypt invaded, 639; fall of Caesarea in Palestine, 640 | |
| Constantine III | 3 months, 641 |
| Heraclonas/ Heracleon | 1 month, 641 |
| deposed & mutilated | |
| Constans II Pogonatus | 641-668, last Emperor to visit Rome as a possession |
| Egypt lost, 641; Genoa (Liguria) lost to Lombards, 644; Alexandria briefly reoccupied, 645; Roman army destroyed in North Africa, but Arabs withdraw, 647; Arab invasion of Sicily defeated, 652, 667; campaign against the Lombards, visit to Rome & Naples, 663; assassinated at Syracuse, 668 | |
| Constantine IV | 668-685 |
| Siege of Constantinople by the Caliph Mu'âwiya, 674-677; Council VI, Constantinople III, Monotheletism condemned, 680-681 | |
| Justinian II Rhinotmetus | 685-695, 705-711 |
| Loss of Armenia, 693; Berber al-Kâhina defeats Arabs in North Africa, Carthage recovered, 698; al-Kâhina defeated, 702; Carthage destroyed, 705; Roman governor in Ceuta (Morocco), last possession in North Africa, eliminated by Arabs, 711 | |
| non-dynastic | |
| Leontius | 695-698 |
| Carthage falls to Arabs, 698 | |
| Tiberius III (Apsimar) | 698-705 |
| Philippicus Bardanes (Vardan) | 711-713 |
| Anastasius II | 713-715 |
| Theodosius III | 715-717 |
Heraclius had received significant material aid from the Gök Turks, who were the parent of the Khazars, of long future Roman alliance. Heraclius betrothed his daughter Eudocia to the Khagan, who died (630) before the marriage could be effected. This seems to be the first of Roman relations with any Turks, and the first of at least three marriages that would be arranged with the Khazars.
The peace restored the status quo ante bellum. In 629 Heraclius began to use the title of the defeated monarch, the traditional Persian "Great King." Thus Basileus, 
, the Greek word for "King," became the mediaeval Greek word for "Emperor" (although, actually, Procopius was already using it that way in the days of Justinian) -- as Greek now (or hereabouts) replaces Latin as the Court language as well as the language of command in the Army. With Basileus for "Emperor," the Latin word rex is borrowed, as 
, to use for mere kings as such. Latin military terms are translated, such as 
for dux, "duke," and 
for comes, "count," and continued in use through the history of Romania -- they went their own way, of course, in the feudalism of Francia. There was already a sense that autokrator, 
, translated imperator, "commander," and it was typically coupled with Basileus, although not exclusively. The use of autokrator in this way, continued down to Russia, where the Emperor was formally "Tsar and Autocrat."
But then, barely six years after this exhausting victory, the Arabs, united by Islâm, appeared out of the desert and quickly conquered Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. Jerusalem would never be recovered, except temporarily by the Crusaders. Old and ill, and after all his years campaigning in rugged mountains, Heraclius commanded none of the armies against the Arabs and had to watch his life's work largely melt away to an enemy whose advent no one could have predicted or even imagined, while people said it was the Judgment of God because he had married his niece. But a core for the Empire had been saved.
There are reports of local Jews helping the Persians during the taking of Jerusalem and the Persian occupation of other locations. Since Persia had recently expelled their own Jews, this casts some doubt on the idea that Jews would help them. However, in the course of the Persian withdrawl, there certainly were riots and clashes involving Christians and Jews in several places. These may have been unmotivated attacks on the Jews, but it does mean that something else may have been going on. It is not inconveivable that local Jews helped the Persians, regardless of what policy had been to the Jews in Persia. Then we have an order of 632 from Heraclius calling for the forced baptism of Jews in North Africa. But North Africa wasn't even occupied by the Persians, and we don't know if this order was even extended to the rest of the Empire. That it was may be indicated by Heraclius' efforts to get Dagobert I of Francia to apply it in his own lands, which evidently he did. Subsequently, we hear of Jews fleeing to the Muslims as they advanced. Even though Muh.ammad, like the Persians, had expelled the Jews from his own jurisdiction in Medina, we know that Jews certainly could expect a more benign attitude from the Muslims than they had been receiving from the Christians. At that point, they would have owed no more loyalty to Heraclius and Romania than would the Monophysites. Under Islâm, their situation would be no worse, and perhaps better, than that of local Christians. We are left to wonder, then, what actually was going on with the Jewish population.
Constans II was the last Emperor to campaign in Italy and visit Rome as an Imperial possession (later the Palaeologi went to beg for help). While driving the Lombards up to their capital, Pavia, his attempts to eliminate the Lombard Dukes of Benevento, whose possessions were disruptively lodged between Roman territory in the South, were nevertheless futile -- the Allies would have similar trouble in the same area in World War II. He was also the last Emperor to exert real control over the Popes, arresting Martin I (649-653, d.655) and exiling him to the Crimea -- which earned him martyrdom and sainthood in the Latin Church. Once in Italy, Constans stayed, apparently wishing to move the capital of the Empire to Syracuse in Sicily. After he was assassinated there (668), nothing further came of this.
Under Constans the structure of the Roman Army was fundamentally changed to deal with the new circumstances of the Empire. As the traditional units, largely familiar from the 5th Century, fell back from the collapsing frontiers, they were settled on the land in Anatolia, to be paid directly from local revenues instead of from the Treasury, whose tax base from Syria and Egypt had disappeared. The areas set aside for particular units became the themes (thema, "placement," plural, themata, from the Greek verb tithêmi, "to put" -- related to thesis).The Themes remained the military bedrock of Romania until the end of the 11th century and soon replaced the old Roman provinces as the administrative divisions of the Empire, with the commanding stratêgos, "general," becoming the military governor of his theme. The commander of the Opsician Theme, however, was a Comes, "Count," in deference to the origin of the Theme from the Armies in the Emperor's Presence. Thus, the Army of the East, driven out of Syria, was settled in the Anatolic Theme, where it would guard the obvious route for invasion or raids from Syria: the Cilician Gates through the Taurus Mountains. Although invasions and raids there would be, the Arabs never did secure any conquests beyond the Gates. Where the Army of the East in the Late Empire numbered about 20,000 men, the forces of the Anatolic Theme varied from about 18,000 in 773 to 15,000 in 899 [Warren Treadgold, Byzantium and Its Army, 284-1081, Stanford, 1995, p.67].
As the remnants of the Late Roman Army were settled on the land (like the earlier Limitanei), there were also standing forces that accompanied the Emperor, like the old Comitatenses. There were already two such units in the Late Empire, the Scholae and the Excubitors -- the latter had been created by Leo I in 466 as a force of Isaurians to use, under its commander Zeno, against the Germans in the Eastern Army. These would be organized by Constantine V into the core of a new Standing or Mobile Army, the Tagmata (singular, tagma, "regiment"), and would eventually grow into a large army in its own right. In 899, the Tagmata together numbered about 28,000 men, while the entire Army, Themes and Tagmata combined, added up to about 128,000 men [Treadgold, op.cit.]. This was less than half of the Augustan Army and not even a quarter of Constantine's; but considering that the Empire is reduced to the lower Balkans and Anatolia, it is proportionally still robust, especially in an Age when a paid military establishment was impossible in most of Europe. As with the decline of the Limitanei, the late Macedonian Emperors began to neglect the Thematic forces and rely on the Tagmata, which soon filled with mercenaries. Some mercenaries could be quite faithful, like the Saxon refugees from Norman England who served in the Varangian Guard for more than three centuries (the Egklinovaraggoi). This worked reasonably well while there was money. But when the finances collapsed, loses could not be made good, or the more mercenary warriors retained. This led to fiascoes like the hire of the Catalan Company (1303), who mutinied (1305) and seized the Duchy of Athens (1311). Even under the Palaeologi, landed frontier forces (now the akritai) remained the best investment but were imprudently neglected, with disastrous consequences.
After Constantine IV withstood the first Arab siege of Constantinople, burning the Arab fleet with the famous and mysterious "Greek Fire" (which sounds like nothing so much as napalm, since it could burn under water), it looked like the Empire would survive. With the last member of the dynasty, Justinian II, we have a curious experiment in humanity. When the Emperor was deposed in 695, instead of being killed, his nose was cut off -- as had that of Heraclonas in 641. Hence his epithet, Rhinotmetus, "Cut Nose." It was expected that this would disqualify him from attempts at restoration. It didn't, and Justinian returned to power in 705. Henceforth, deposed Emperors, or other politically threatening persons, would be blinded. This was more effective (although the blind Isaac II was restored by the Fourth Crusade), though now it may not seem particularly more humane than execution. Otherwise, the end of the dynasty demonstrates one drawback of the new themes: they represented such military force that the strategus, their commander, was continually tempted to revolt. This problem was soon addressed simply by dividing the themes into smaller ones.
The maps of Romania now become much smaller. Egypt, Palestine, Spain, and North Africa are gone forever. Footholds in Italy and the Balkans remain. Greece and the Balkans would be recovered in time, but everything in Italy would eventually be lost also. For the time being, the heartland of the Empire will be Asia Minor. Although this would provide the resources for revival, even for colonization back into Greece, it was still open to Arab raids. They could not be precluded for a couple of centuries.
| 2. KHAZARS, Khagans & Beks | |
|---|---|
| Ashina Khagans | |
| Ziebel, Yabghu Xak'an(?) | 618-630 |
| allied with Heraclius, overruns Georgia, 627-628, takes Tiflis, 628 | |
| Interregnum, 630-650 | |
| Irbis (?) | c.650 |
| Busir (Ibuzir Glavan) | c.690-715 |
| Barjik | 720's-731 |
| Arabs defeated, 730; Barjik defeated & killed, 731 | |
| Bihar | c.732 |
Prisbit  | Regent ?, 730's |
| To Omayyads, 737-c.740 | |
| Baghatur | c.760 |
| Khan-Tuvan Dyggvi | c.825-830 |
| "Tarkhan" | 840's |
| Zachariah | c.860's |
The Khazars were of Turkic derivation, speaking a poorly attested Altaic language, apparently closely related to Hunnic, Bulgar (Bolghar), and the surviving modern Chuvash. Titles familiar from Bulgar, Mongolian, or Turkish as Khagan, Qaghan, or Khân, and Beg or Bey, occur here as "Khagan" or "Xak'an" and "Bek." Byzantine histories do not give any lists of Khazar rulers, but Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies comes through with most of the information I am able to use here.
The Khazar realm began as the westernmost reach of the Gök (or Kök) Turkiut Great Turkish Khanate, which extended across Central Asia. This vast but poorly documented realm broke up into Eastern and Western halves in 553/554.
| Beks | |
|---|---|
| Tar'mach | c.730 |
| Hazer Tarkhan | ?-737 |
| To Omayyads, 737-c.740 | |
| Bulanid Beks/Khagans? | |
| Bulan Sabriel | c.740 |
| Obadiah | c.786-809 |
| Hezekiah | |
| Manasseh I | |
| Chanukkah | |
| Isaac | |
| Zebulun | |
| Manasseh II | |
| Nisi | |
| Aaron I | c.900 |
| Menahem | |
| Benjamin | c.920 |
| Aaron II | c.920's-940 |
| Joseph | c.940-965 |
| sovereignty broken by Sviatoslav I of Kiev, 965-969 | |
| David | in Taman, c.986-988 |
| Georgius Tzul | in Kerch, ?-1016 |
This Khagan is reported by Moses Dasxuranci as delivering an ultimatum to the Shâh Khusro II circa 627:
If you will not retreat from the king of the Romans and surrender to him all the lands and cities which you have taken by force and return all of the prisoners of his country now in your hands, together with the wood of the Cross which all Chrisian nations worship and honor; if you will not recall your troops from his territory, the king of the north, the lord of the whole world, your king and the king of kings, says to you: "I shall turn against you, governor of Asorestan, and shall replay you twofold for each deed committed against him. I shall swoop upon your lands with my sword as you descended upon his with yours. I shall not spare you, nor shall I delay to do to you what I said I shall do." [Walter E. Kaegi, Heraclius, Emperor of Byzantium, Cambridge, 2003, p.158]
Substantial help was provided for Heraclius, but not to this degree, and without even Heraclius acknowledging pretentions that sound more like those of Genghis Khan.
In 695, Justinian II was deposed, mutilated, and exiled to the Crimea. Before long, however, he escaped to the Khazars, where he contracted to marry the sister, then baptised "Theodora," of the Khagan Busir. Although Theodora was soon pregnant, Busir had second thoughts about harboring Justinian and estranging the new Emperor, Tiberias III. Justinian was forced to flee again, this time to the Bulgar Qaghan Tervel. In 705 Tervel marched on Constantinople to restore Justinian. The Emperor was able to enter the City with a small number of men through the previously broken Aqueduct of Valens, and resistance collapsed. Tervel was given the rank of Caesar, and the Khazar Khagan obligingly sent his sister and her new son to Constantinople.
The Khagan Barjik defeated and destroyed an Arab army of the Caliph Hishâm outside Ardebil in Iran in 730, but he was then defeated and killed at Mosul a year later. With the Arabs then raiding into the Khazar homeland, in 733 the Emperor Leo III cemented the Roman-Khazar alliance by marrying his son, the future Emperor Constantine V, to the daughter, Tzitazk, of the Khazar Khagan, named as "Bihar." Baptized "Irene," her son would be the Emperor Leo IV, "the Khazar." Justinian's Khazar son had not become Emperor, but now two Emperors of the Syrian dynasty would have Khazar blood.
The line of Ashina Khagans now becomes shrouded in an obscurity even greater than what we previously had to contend with -- the "Tarkhan" of the 840's may even be a confusion, since the name actually can be a military rank. Instead, we begin to get indications of leadership falling on generals, the "Beks," who gradually overshadow or even replace the Khagans. Thus, it is the Bek Hazer Tarkhan whose army was destroyed by the Omayyads at Itil in 737. This led to a short occupation and forced Islamization of the Khazar homeland -- forced Islamization because the Khazars were still pagan and thus had no rights as "People of the Book." Under Islamic Law, their choice was conversion or death.
The means and spirit of resistance not lacking among the Khazars, Arab control was thrown off around 740. This experience, however, led to one of the most significant events in all of Khazar history: the Conversion of the nation to Judaism. This may have happened as early as 740, or at late as 861. The earlier date corresponds to the rule of the Bek Bulan Sabriel, while the later date involves association with St. Cyril. The story is that the Khazars entertained appeals and arguments from representatives of all the major religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, before making their decision. Choosing Judaism may have involved a desire to remain independent of both Christian and Islamic powers. St. Cyril's visit was probably a bit late.
The existence of the Jewish Khazars immediately suggests that the subsequent Jews of Russia may be their descendants, However, modern Russian Jews have spoken Yiddish and look to be immigrants from Germany into areas of Poland that were subsequently annexed to Russia. In the same way, genetic studies tend to link Russian Jews with Jews elsewhere. On the other hand, Russians Jews often have red hair, which does not look like something of Middle Eastern origin but has historically occurred in Central Asia. Genghis Khan himself is often said to have had red hair. Also, we know that in 529 the Sassanid Shâh (or Crown Prince; he wasn't Shâh until 531) Khusro I expelled Jews from Persia and that they fled north of the Caucasus. It is therefore possible that the Khazars converted to Judaism in part because there were Jews among them, with whom they had been or were then actually intermarrying. Bruce Gordon says that Khazar Jews were known to be present in Kiev and to have emigrated to places as diverse as Spain, Egypt, Iraq, Hungary, Poland, and the Crimea, where they intermarried with other Jews. This would imply a Khazar element in much of World Jewry. With all these possibilities, the questions about the Khazars and their Judaism are certain to continue.
Gordon mentions that the list of Bulanid Beks, who may have become the Khazar Khagans, is derived from a list sent by the Bek Joseph to Hisdai ibn Shaprut, a Jewish Vizir to the Omayyad Caliph 'Abdur-Rah.mân III (912-961) in Spain. Joseph refers to himself as the "King of the Khazars."
Joseph's state, however, was in its last days. Sviatoslav I of Kiev attacks the Khazars in 965 and by 969 took the capital, Itil, on the Volga. Sviatoslav's attack was no more than a raid -- he was unable to establish any control of the area. Meanwhile, however, new nomads had arrived, the Cumans, who push the Khazars off the Steppe, until they disappear in the obscure realms of the Caucasus. Gordon gives two rulers from Khazar successor states that survived in the area, which brings Khazar history down to 1016, in the reign of the Emperor Basil II -- although there are apparent references to them even later. The rise of Russia and new movements of nomads in Central Asia would soon give Romania new allies and new formidable and deadly enemies.
| 4. SYRIANS (ISAURIANS) | |
|---|---|
| Leo III | 717-741 |
| Siege of Constantinople by the Caliphs Sulaymân & 'Umar II, 717-718; volcanic eruption of Thera (Santorini), 726; Tax Revolt in Italy, end of Imperial authority in Exarchate, Exarch Paulicius assassinated, 727; Edict establishing Iconoclasm, 730 | |
| Constantine V Copronymus | 741-775 |
| revolt of Artavasdus, 741-743; plague, 745-748; Arab fleet destroyed off Cyprus, 747; Ravenna Falls to Lombards, 751; Iconoclast Council, 754; defeat of Bulgars, 763; Aqueduct of Valens restored, 767; defeat of Bulgars, 774 | |
| Leo IV the Khazar | 775-780 |
| Constantine VI | 780-797 |
| Irene | 780-790, Regent |
| 792-802 | |
| Council VII, Nicaea II, Iconoclasm condemned, 787; Black Sea freezes, winter of 800-801 | |
links the election of the first Doge of Venice with Leo's prohibition of images; but the election was in 727, during a tax revolt, not in 730, when Leo did prohibit images, alienating the Western Church.
The prohibition of religious images began the Iconoclasm controversy. One way to understand it is to realize that the conflict between Islâm and Christendom was not just a contest of arms but, mutatis mutandis, an ideological struggle. Christians were not being accused, to be sure, of oppressing the workers, but they were being accused of being polytheists (because of the Trinity) and idolaters (for making and venerating images). Indeed, some Islâmic attitudes are familiar from later religious ideological conflict, since disgust and condemnation of a priesthood and celibacy, not to mention the use of images, could later draw sympathy from Protestantism. The Thousand and One Nights derives great humor from the notion that the incense burned by Christians (but not, of course, by later Protestants) was made from the dung of bishops.
Since Leo III is considered to have come from either Syria or the nearby Isauria, his concern about this issue is supposed to have resulted from his sensitivity to the effect of Islâmic charges on the previously Christian populations of the areas, like Syria, conquered by Islâm. Conversions did not have to be effected by force, which was prohibited by the Qur'ân anyway, but by powerful persuasion (and, easily understood in modern terms, tax incentives). So Leo, a sort of proto-Protestant, decided to clean up Christianity's act. This did not find any traction in the West, however. The Latin Church felt no sting from Islâmic ideology. Leo's successes against the Arabs, obvious evidence of the favor of God, became associated with Iconoclasm. After images were restored by Irene, and military reverses seemed to follow, the favor of God was apparently withdrawn. The final Iconoclast period (815-843) was of such mixed military fortunes, with a serious defeat in 838, that worries about the favor of God faded, as Papal support for images had never faltered.
A geologically significant event occurred with the eruption of the volcanic island of Thera (Santorini) in 726. The volcano had been active since 718, but the eruption of 726 blew ash as far away as Macedonia. This may have been the largest eruption in Europe since Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. Such an event may have contributed to Leo's sense that the Wrath of God had been provoked and that something like Icoclasm was the proper response. In the longer view of history, the most striking thing about the event is its echo of the great eruption of Thera that is now dated to have been between 1627 and 1600 BC (right at the end of the Egyptian Second Intermediate Period). This wiped out what seems to have been a very large city of the Minoan Civilization on Thera. With ash, earthquakes, and tsunamis affecting Crete, the eruption may have delivered a devastating blow to that Civilization, which then limped on in part through its Greek, Mycenaean adaptation. Memory of the event may account for the stories of Atlantis related by Plato. Today Thera is a popular tourist destination, though the bay of the caldera is too deep for ships to anchor. Recently (April 6, 2007), the cruise ship Sea Diamond sank in the bay, with the loss of two passengers.
The final fall of Ravenna to the Lombards in 751 led to the intervention of the Franks in Italy, at the urging of the Pope. Romania would never return to Central or Northern Italy. Nevertheless, the form of the Exarchate of Ravenna across central Italy, a corridor held between the Lombards in the north and those in the south, survived as the "Donation" of the Frankish King Pepin to the Pope -- the 
Papal States, whose history ran from 754 to 1870, 1116 years. Thus, although politically insignificant after 751, Ravenna nevertheless casts a kind of shadow deep into modern history -- including the name that, as a Roman capital, the city gives to the surrounding region, Romagna -- a word that looks like "Romania" where the "i" has patalalized the "n," the equivalent of Romaña, as we might write it in Spanish. Even as late as 1500 AD, as we see on the map below (Historical Atlas of the World, Barnes & Noble, 1970, 1972, p.49), the Archbishop of Ravenna has jurisdiction over an area of Northern Italy still coextensive with the historic Romagna. 
But it was in Bologna, the largest city of the region, where the Pope last crowned a Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, in 1530. Note that Modena and Parma are separate states in the Renaissance.
The Fall of Ravenna was on the watch of Constantine V, who came to be called "Copronymus," "Name of Dung" -- certainly one the harshest, crudest epithets in the history of royalty. Nevertheless, Constantine's reign may be regarded as generally successful, and the epithet is simply due to his persecution, including torture and execution, of those opposed to Iconclasm. In another proto-Protestant move, Constantine began forcing monks and nuns, strong supporters of icons, to marry. Otherwise, there were military successes against the Bulgars and even Arabs, where the Abbasid Revolution disrupted the attention of the Caliphate.
Constantine also began developing mobile military units, the tagmata (singular, tagma, from tassein, "to arrange, put in order" or "to draw up in order of battle" -- "regiment" would thus be an appropriate translation), 
in addition to the landed thematic forces that had become fundamental to Roman military power. The units were commanded by a Domestic (Domesticus), except the Watch, whose commander was a Drungarius. This represented the first steps back to a paid professional army and so is a sign of a reviving economy. The Empire, however, would never be able to remain strong without the themes, and their collapse at the end of the 11th century would be the end of Romania as a hegemonic power. Eventually the Tagmata consisted of the Scholae ("Schools"), the Numera ("Number," feminine of Latin Numerus, used for a military unit), the Walls (Teichistai, or tôn Teicheôn, "of the Walls"), the Excubitors ("Sentinels"), the Optimates (Latin "the Best"), the Watch (Vigla, familar from "Vigil" in English, or Arithmos, equivalent to Numerus in meaning), the Hicanati ("Able Ones"), the Immortals (Athanatoi, named for the elite unit of Achaemenid Persia, who members were replaced as soon as they fell), and, finally, the Varangian Guard. The Scholae were Guard units founded by Constantine. The Numera and Walls were garrison troops for Constantinople, doubtlessly dating from the foundation of the City. The Excubitors had been created by Leo I with Isaurian recruits as part of his plan to purge the Army of Germans. All these units had rather withered until Constantine V, who recreated them as his own personal force after the revolt of Count Artabasdos (741–743) of the Opsician Theme. The status of the Optimates, which began as a fighting force with the other Tagmata, soon became a support unit, proving and supervising transport and logistics. Its commander remained a Domesticus, but it was settled on land, like a Thematic army, in the Optimakôn ("of the Optimates") Theme on the Asian side of the Bosporus, where other Tagmata units might be quartered. The Optimates thus are best regarded as a Thematic force that nevertheless is dedicated to the support of the Tagmata.
The next 
Tagma added to the Army was the Watch, created by the Empress Irene from drafts of Thematic soldiers because the Scholae and others were strongly Iconoclast in sentiment and were interfering with her plans to Retore the Icons. There is some confusion about the names here. The Watch (Vigla) was also called the Arithmos, "Number," which was equivalent to Latin Numerus, and sometimes seems to be confused with the Numera Tagma. Thus, Warren Treadgold says that under Constantine V the "senior tagmata, the Scholae, Excubitors, and Watch" were cavalry units, while the "junior tagmata, the Numera, Walls, and Optimates," were infantry [Byzantium and its Army, 284-1081, Sanford, 1995, p.28]. He also adds that the Hicanati, created by Nicephorus I, were "a fourth cavalry tagma" [p.29]. If we need merely switch the Watch and Numera in Treadgold's account, we also have the problem that the third force of infantry would then still not exist until the Empress Irene. The Watch (or Treadgold's Numera), however, may have existed in some form before Irene. From its name, it does sound like part of the garrison force of Constantinople, since it has always been the job of a Watch, before the existence of police forces, to patrol cities at night to enforce the law and the peace. Irene may have transformed the Watch into a proper tagma, as Constantine V did with the original units he took in hand. The final tagmata, the Immortals and the Varangian Guard, would added by the Macedonians.
As Frankish power waxed, the Pope took the step of crowning the Frankish King Charles as Emperor in 800. This was during the reign of Irene, who had taken the throne exclusively for herself, the only Empress ever to do so, by having her son Constantine VI blinded (he died, too). Although Irene restored the images and reconciled the Eastern and Western Churches, the Pope decided to arrogate the authority of crowning a proper, male Emperor to himself (later justified with the fraudulent "Donation of Constantine" document, by which Constantine I had supposedly given the entire Western Empire to the Pope). While Charlemagne even offered to marry Irene, who could have regarded him as only the rudest of barbarians, this all signaled a fundamental parting of the ways between the Latin Europe of Pope and Franks (Francia) and the Greek Europe of Romania. Note the parallels between the reign of Irene and that of the slightly earlier Empress Wu (685-705) of T'ang Dynasty China. Because she did restore the Icons, Irene was later venerated as far away as the St. Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai -- although by then Sinai had been lost to Romania for almost two hundred years. She does not seem to have gotten as much credit closer to home, perhaps because Iconoclasm returned for a while.
| 5. DOGES (DUKES) OF VENICE, 727-1797 | |
|---|---|
| Orso (Ursus) Ipato | 727-738 |
| Teodato (Deusdedit) Ipato | 742, 744-736 |
| Ravenna falls to Lombards, 751 | |
| Galla Gaulo | 756 |
| Domenico Monegaurio | 756-765 |
| Maurizio I Galbaio | 765-787 |
| Giovanni and Maurizio II Galbaio | 787-802 |
| Obelerio Antenorio | 802-811 |
| Venetia & Dalmatia submit to Franks, 806; Roman fleet reestablishes authority, 807 | |
| Beato | 808-811 |
| Angello Partecipazio | 811-827 |
| Giustiniano Partecipazio | 827-829 |
| Giovanni (I) Partecipazio | 829-836 |
| Pietro Tradonico | 836-864 |
| Orso I Badoer (I Partecipazio) | 864-881 |
| Giovanni Badoer (II Partecipazio) | 881-888 |
| Venice effectively independent, 886 | |
| Pietro I Candiano | 887 |
| Pietro Tribuno | 888-912 |
| Orso II Badoer (II Partecipazio) | 912-932 |
| Pietro II Candiano | 932-939 |
| Pietro Badoer (Partecipazio) | 939-942 |
| Pietro III Candiano | 942-959 |
| Pietro IV Candiano | 959-976 |
| Pietro I Orseolo | 976-978 |
| Vitale Candiano | 978-979 |
| Tribuno Menio (Memmo) | 979-991 |
| Pietro II Orseolo | 991-1008 |
| Ottone Orseolo | 1008-1026, 1030-1032 |
| Pietro Centranico (Barbolano) | 1026-1030 |
| Domenico Flabianico | 1032-1043 |
| Domenico Contarini | 1043-1070 |
| Reconstruction of St. Mark's Cathedral begun, 1063 | |
| Domenico Silvio (Selvo) | 1070-1084 |
| Trade concession with Romania, 1082 | |
| Vitale Falier | 1084-1096 |
| St. Mark's Cathedral consecrated, relics of St. Mark deposited, 1094 | |
| Vitale I Michiel (Michel) | 1096-1101 |
| Ordelafo Falier | 1101-1118 |
| Domenico Michiel | 1118-1129 |
| Pietro Polani | 1129-1148 |
| Domenico Morosini | 1148-1155 |
| Vitale II Michiel | 1155-1172 |
| all Venetians arrested in Romania, Enrico Dandolo loses an eye, 1171; plague brought to Venice, Doge killed by mob, 1172 | |
| Sebastiano Ziani | 1172-1178 |
| Orio Mastropiero (Malipiero) | 1178-1192 |
| Enrico Dandolo | 1192-1205 |
| Fourth Crusade, 1202-1204; Constantinople falls to Crusaders & Venetians, 1204; Venice ceded 3/8 of Romania | |
| Pietro Ziani | 1205-1229 |
| Giacomo Tiepolo | 1229-1249 |
| Marino Morosini | 1249-1253 |
| Reniero Zeno | 1253-1268 |
| Restoration of Greek rule in Constantinople, 1261 | |
| Lorenzo Tiepolo | 1268-1275 |
| Jacopo Contarini | 1275-1280 |
| Giovanni Dandolo | 1280-1289 |
| Venetians mint Ducats after Roman debasement, 1284 | |
| Pietro Gradenigo | 1289-1311 |
| Venetian fleet destroyed by Genoa at Curzola, Marco Polo captured, 1298 | |
| Marino Zorzi | 1311-1312 |
| Giovanni Soranzo | 1312-1328 |
| Francesco Dandolo | 1328-1339 |
| Bartolomeo Gradenigo | 1339-1342 |
| Andrea Dandolo | 1343-1354 |
| Crown Jewels of Romania pawned, 1343; Black Death arrives at Venice, 1347; War with Genoa, 1350-1355 | |
| Marino Falier | 1354-1355 |
| Giovanni Gradenigo | 1355-1356 |
| Giovanni Dolfin | 1356-1361 |
| Lorenzo Celsi | 1361-1365 |
| Marco Corner | 1365-1368 |
| Corfu acquired, 1368 | |
| Andrea Contarini | 1368-1382 |
| Michele Morosini | 1382 |
| Antonio Venier | 1382-1400 |
| Michele Steno | 1400-1413 |
| Tommaso Mocenigo | 1414-1423 |
| Francesco Foscari | 1423-1457 |
| Thessalonica ceded by Romania, 1423, captured by Turks, 1430; Patriarch of Grado becomes Patriarch of Venice, 1451; Constantinople falls to Turks, Venetian baillie executed, others executed, enslaved, ransomed, 1453 | |
| Pasquale Malipiero | 1457-1462 |
| Cristoforo Moro | 1462-1471 |
| possesion of the Monembasia fortress, 1463-1538; Euboia (Negroponte) falls to Turks, 1470 | |
| Nicolò Tron | 1471-1473 |
| Nicolò Marcello | 1473-1474 |
| Pietro Mocenigo | 1474-1476 |
| Andrea Vendramin | 1476-1478 |
| Giovanni Mocenigo | 1478-1485 |
| Marco Barbarigo | 1485-1486 |
| Agostino Barbarigo | 1486-1501 |
| Cyprus passes to Venice, 1489; Modon & Coron in Morea fall to Turks, 1500 | |
| Leonardo Loredan | 1501-1521 |
| Antonio Grimani | 1521-1523 |
| Andrea Gritti | 1523-1538 |
| Monembasia falls to Turks, 1538 | |
| Pietro Lando | 1539-1545 |
| Francesco Donato | 1545-1553 |
| Marcantonio Trevisan | 1553-1554 |
| Francesco Venier | 1554-1556 |
| Lorenzo Priuli | 1556-1559 |
| Girolamo Priuli | 1559-1567 |
| Pietro Loredan | 1567-1570 |
| Alvise I Mocenigo | 1570-1577 |
| Turkish Conquest of Cyprus, 1571; Battle of Lepanto, naval defeat of Turkey by Spain, Venice, & Malta, 1571 | |
| Sebastiano Venier | 1577-1578 |
| Nicolò da Ponte | 1578-1585 |
| Pasquale Cicogna | 1585-1595 |
| Marino Grimani | 1595-1605 |
| Leonardo Donato | 1606-1612 |
| Marcantonio Memmo | 1612-1615 |
| Giovanni Bembo | 1615-1618 |
| Nicolò Donato | 1618 |
| Antonio Priuli | 1618-1623 |
| Francesco Contarini | 1623-1624 |
| Giovanni Corner | 1625-1629 |
| Nicolò Contarini | 1630-1631 |
| Francesco Erizzo | 1631-1646 |
| Francesco Molin | 1646-1655 |
| Carlo Contarini | 1655-1656 |
| Francesco Corner | 1656 |
| Bertucci (Albertuccio) Valier | 1656-1658 |
| Giovanni Pesaro | 1658-1659 |
| Domenico Contarini | 1659-1675 |
| Conquest of Crete by Turkey, 1669 | |
| Nicolò Sagredo | 1675-1676 |
| Luigi Contarini | 1676-1684 |
| Marcantonio Giustinian | 1684-1688 |
| possession of Monembasia fortress, 1684-1715; Parthenon destroyed in explosion under Venetian bombardment, 1687 | |
| Francesco Morosini | 1688-1694 |
| Silvestro Valier | 1694-1700 |
| Alvise II Mocenigo | 1700-1709 |
| Giovanni II Corner | 1709-1722 |
| Monembasia falls to Turks, 1715 | |
| Alvise III Mocenigo | 1722-1732 |
| Carlo Ruzzini | 1732-1735 |
| Alvise Pisani | 1735-1741 |
| Pietro Grimani | 1741-1752 |
| Francesco Loredan | 1752-1762 |
| Marco Foscarini | 1762-1763 |
| Alvise IV Mocenigo | 1763-1778 |
| Paolo Renier | 1779-1789 |
| Lodovico Manin | 1789-1797, d. 1802 |
| Venice Falls to Napoleon Bonaparte, 1797 | |
Venice was the "Most Serene Republic" (Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia), or the "Queen of the Adriatic." The title of Doge derives from that of a late Roman commander of a military frontier, Dux ("leader," in Greek, duce in Modern Italian). This is cognate to English "Duke." The Doges were always elected, from a variety of families, as their names indicate. Over time their powers were increasingly limited, as Venice evolved into an oligarchic Republic. The Duke of Venetia at first would have been like many other Romanian officials in Italy, such as the Dukes of Naples, but Constantinople rarely had occasion or ability to exert direct rule over Venice, so over time the city drifted into independence, competition, and eventually belligerence.
The name "Venice" is derived from the name of the Roman province that embraced the whole area, Venetia. The principle city of Venetia was Aquileia. Although sacked by the Goths, the Huns, and the Lombards, Aquileia remained the most important city of the region for most of the Middle Ages. However, in the troubled times, people would flee the mainland to barrier islands along the coast or to islands in the lagoons behind them. Aquileia itself thus acquired a counterpart, Grado, on the nearby barrier island. To the west, a community formed on Rialto Island in the much larger lagoon seaward from Padua. Farming or building on such islands was a challenge. Earth needed to be brought in or dredged up to fill plots created from woven grasses. Substantial buildings required foundations of logs driven down into the muddy soil. Eventually this allowed a large city to rise on the Rialto. As its strength grew, the Rialto became powerful and preeminent and took on the name of the whole province -- Venetia, Venezia, Venice. The power of Aquileia was reduced by Austria, and finally the city itself was annexed by Venice in 1420. The Patriarchate that had been seated at Aquileia, and then had been divided with Grado, ultimately moved to Venice alone. Since 1451, Venice has been the seat of the Patriarchs of Venice, whose story can be examined in a separate popup. Although it is commonly thought that the mainland was abandoned in the 5th century and the whole population moved permanently to places like the Rialto, this does not seem to have been the case. It was a more gradual process, and the success of Venice may have been due to the realization that it provided defense, not against barbarian invasions, but in the face of the Frankish Emperors and other mainland powers. Venice, indeed, would be immune to conquest until Napoleon.
Venice was briefly in the power of Franks. According to Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, the Venetians told King Pepin, "We want to be servants of the emperor of the Romans, and not of you" [De Administrando Imperio, Greek text edited by Gy. Moravcsik and translated by R.J.H. Jenkins, Dumbarton Oaks, Center for Byzantine Studies, 1967, p.121]. Eventually the Venetians agreed to pay tribute, but it steadily declined to a merely nominal sum.
The list of Doges is taken from Byzantium and Venice, A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations, by Donald M. Nicol [Cambridge University Press, 1988, 1999], and Storia di Venezia Volume II, by Eugenio Musatti [4th edition, Fratelli Treves Editori, Milano, 1937]. A complete list can also be found in A History of Venice, by John Julius Norwich [Vintage Books, 1989].
After the Schism of the Eastern and Western Churches (1054), there came to be growing religious hostility between Venice and her metropolis. However, Venice never quite fit in to the political system of Francia. For a while, as noted, the Republic paid tribute to the Carolingians but quickly enough shook off any obligation. Playing Constantinople and the West against each other, Venice never really acknowledged the authority of the Frankish or German Emperors and in time was relatively safe in its lagoon from attempts to impose imperial authority, whether from East or West. With the decline of Romania, Venice largely pursued its affairs at the expense of Constantinople and only came to be pushed out of the area altogether by the Ottomans.
When Alexius Comnenus signed a pact with Venice in 1082, the Republic became a partner with the now beleaguered Constantinople. During the honeymoon period we get the completion of St. Mark's Cathedral -- a mature Romania seeding its culture into the maturing Venice.
)
The honeymoon didn't last. The pact gave Venice a choke hold on the trade of Romania and on naval power in Romanian waters -- on at least one occasion Venetians burned Roman warships on the stocks before they could be completed. Although Alexius didn't have much choice at the time, this led to retaliation later. Manuel I arrested all Venetians in 1171 and little but hostile relations followed -- even peaceful exchanges revealed tragic inequality, as when the Imperial Crown Jewels were pawned with Venice in 1343.
The fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade in 1204 was largely engineered by the Doge Enrico Dandolo, who was actually buried in Sancta Sophia. By the settlement with the Crusaders, Venice was ceded 3/8 of the Empire, and the Doge henceforth styled himself quartae partis et dimidiae totius imperii Romaniae Dominator ("Lord of a quarter and a half [of a quarter] of the whole Empire of Romania"). Norwich interestingly translates this as "Lord of ... the Roman Empire" (p.147), but the phrase was imperium Romaniae, "Empire of Romania," not imperium Romanum, "Roman Empire." Venice was obviously not claiming 3/8 of the Empire of Trajan, but of the much reduced mediaeval Romania (this looks like part of the conspiracy of ignore the word "Romania" in Roman and "Byzantine" studies). This fragmentation of Romania helped Venice maintain her advantages, but it weakened the whole in the face of the eventual Ottoman threat. Venice could neither hold off the Turks nor support a local state strong enough to do so.
When the Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus took Constantinople back from the Crusaders, he conferred commercial advantages, not on Venice, but on her hated rival, Genoa, which, of course, had been Roman until lost to the Lombards in 642. This confirmed that Italy rather than Romania would be the center of trade and naval power in the Christian Mediterranean. Genoa was even granted the city of Galata, just across the Golden Horn from Constantinople itself, in 1267. As the Turks fatally invested Constantinople in 1453, it was Genoa rather than Venice that contributed to its defense -- though Galata itself remained neutral.
The most famous Venetian of the 13th century, and possibly of all history, was Marco Polo (c.1254-c.1324). Polo's business travels with his father and uncle to the China of Qubilai Khan might have gone unrecorded, like the stories of many other such travelers, if he had not been taken prisoner by the Genoese in 1298. Languishing in prison in Genoa, Polo began telling his story to a fellow prisoner. This happened to be the Pisan writer Rustichello (or Rusticiano), who thought that Polo's tales might make a good book and wrote it up, in French. This Divisament dou Monde, "Description of the World," soon to be called Il milione, "The Millions," was more a catalogue of places than a narrative of travels. Nevertheless, it was a sensation -- though people had trouble believing the numbers and scale of the places and domains described. One story about Polo himself is that he was questioned about just this on his deathbed. He replied, "I haven't told the half of it." Now that we know independently about the Mongol Empire, even this anecdote has the ring of truth. China alone was vast beyond the reckoning of 13th century Europe. Although serious questions have been raised about some of Polo's claims, details of his story, like the custom of the Chinese to send things to the dead by burning paper copies of them, are still familiar and unique features of Chinese culture. The legend that Marco introduced noodles from China is now commonly discounted, but there is little doubt that someone did that in this era. The Romans were not eating pasta, but at some point we realize that the Italians are. If we we ask where such a preparation existed previously, the answer is China -- something probably as old as Chinese history and still the traditional alternative to rice in any Chinese (or Japanese, etc.) restaurant.
What seems extraordinary about Venice now is how a mere city had become a Great Power, contending on terms of equality, if not superiority, with all of Romania. The tail wagging the dog indeed. And while Venice was never the equal of Turkey, it was for long one of the major belligerents contesting Ottoman advances. What this reveals is the stark difference in wealth between the cash economy of a commercial republic (Venice began minting gold Ducats in 1284) and, on the one hand, the poverty of subsistent kingdoms, like other Western European states and, on the other hand, the fractured economy of Romania, which had previously perpetuated commercial traditions. Venice was soon joined by other Italian cities, like Pisa and then Genoa, in exercising the power made possible by their wealth.
As commercial life began to grow in the North, the Italians began to lose their advantage. After Flanders and the Netherlands became centers of trade and manufacture, the Dukes of Burgundy first benefited from this wealth, then the Hapsburgs, and finally the Netherlands as an independent power. The latter eventuality is especially revealing. The Netherlands was a commercial republic again as Burgundy and the Hapsburg domains had not been. What's more, Amsterdam became the center of European banking, with that preeminence passing from, as it happened, the cities of Northern Italy (remembered in "Lombard Street" in the City of London). The next financial centers, of Europe and the World, would be London and then New York. In the course of all that history, the apparent power of the Italian cities was punctured like a balloon in 1494, when King Charles VIII of France invaded Italy. This is one of the events regarded as marking the end of the Middle Ages. It certainly revealed the comparative disadvantage into which the Italian powers had fallen. A nice recent movie about this period was Dangerous Beauty (1998), about a popular courtesan who ends up in a tug-of-war between Venetian nobility and the (rather unwelcome in Venice) Holy Inquisition. We happen to notice in the course of the movie that Venice has been expelled from Cyprus by the Turks (1571).
Just as bad or worse for Venice's position was the Age of Discovery. The Italian cities had grown strong on the trade of the Levant, and the new Atlantic powers wanted very much to have a way to avoid their mediation, let alone that of Turkey and Mamlûk Egypt, in the transfer of goods from India and further East to Europe. Columbus, therefore, was out to make an end run. Since he ran into the Americas instead of Asia, this diverted Spanish energies, but for Portugal Vasco da Gama did the job of getting to India around Africa in 1498. This eliminated Italy or the Turks from any central position in world trade. They could only fade, in the most literal sense, into back-waters. The Ottomans briefly tried to project their power into the Indian Ocean, occupying Yemen, pressing upon Ethiopia, and even sending to aid to the distant Sultân of Acheh in Sumatra; but the effort, like other Ottoman initiatives, soon petered out.
If the power of Venice began to fade in the 15th and 16th centuries, she was nevertheless one of the intellectual centers of the Renaissance. No one had a greater role in this than Aldus Manutius (Teobaldo Mannucci, d.1515), who founded the 
Aldine Press and, with help of a large staff of Greek expatriots, created printed editions of a large part of Greek literature, often in the convenient octavo pocket editions that he popularized. He was personally motivated to see to it that Greek literature should not only be preserved in printed editions but be made available to all. In 1502, he founded a "New Academy," devoted entirely to Greek, with its business, rules, titles, etc. all conducted or rendered into Greek -- which was also the case in Manutius' own household. Indeed, the members of the Academy, who would include Erasmus, even adopted Hellenized names. The results of his publishing business, besides the pocket editions, included the Italic style of typeface and the formulation of modern punctuation, including the semicolon. Thus, Venice, which had done so much to destroy the power and civilization of Romania, nevertheless played a significant role in preserving its heritage. We must reflect on the irony of this.
The decline of the Turks in the 17th century allowed a brief Venetian resurgence, whose most striking event, however, was probably the destruction of the Parthenon in 1687, when a Venetian cannonball detonated an Ottoman powder magazine -- the ruin of the Acropolis was not produced by the Goths, the Huns, or any event of the Middle Ages, but by modern warfare. By that time a city state was going to be no match for the colonial and maritime powers that were rapidly becoming modern nation states. Venice lapsed into a kind of 18th century version of Las Vegas, a curiosity and a diversion -- and Las Vegas has now reciprocated with the Venetian Hotel. It was such a Venice that produced the memorable career of Giovanni Casanova (1725-1798), who saw the best and the worse of the City, from its marvelous entertainments and his own famous seductions to its terrible prisons and secret tribunals.
After invading Italy and defeating the Austrians, Napoleon had to exert little enough power to eliminate what had become an anchronism. The French were a little puzzled by the hostility of the Venetians to their occupation, since the rousing Republican rhetoric of the French didn't have the effect they expected -- but it was in a place that was, well, already a Republic. Napoleon, indeed, might have taken some lessons from the venerable and terrifying Venetian system of secret police and hidden inquisitorial courts. 
One of the sights of Venice, the "Bridge of Sighs," is a covered way that secretly transported prisoners back and forth from their star chamber trials to their hopeless cells. However hostile to the French, the spirit of Venetian independence was soon forgotten, and it was the Sardinian Kingdom of Italy that detached Venice from Austria in 1866. The Venice of the subsequent period appears in Thomas Mann's Death in Venice (Der Tod in Venedig, 1912), which has been described as, "a symbol-laden story of aestheticism and decadence..." Venice was just the place for that.
On the other hand, the art of Venice, in music -- as with Antonio Vivaldi (1680-1743) -- painting -- as with Titian, Tiziano Vecilli (1477-1576) -- and architecture, is an enduring and vivid monument. Part of this is a hint of the lost beauty of Constantinople, since St. Mark's Cathedral, crowned with four great horses from the Hippodrome and countless other treasures looted from Constantinople in 1204, is a copy of the vanished Church of the Holy Apostles, the burial place of Constantine and his successors (whose site is now occupied by the Fatih Jamii, the mosque, institute, and burial place of Meh.med II, the Conqueror [Fâtih.] of Constantinople). 
Although decorated with loot, the present church was completed earlier, in 1094 (or 1071), with the help of artisans from the still friendly Emperors. The Rialto Bridge across the Grand Canal, the Campanile bell tower (campana, "bell"), the Lido barrier island, and other structures and sites have now contributed their names, if not their images or functions, in countless modern landscapes. Oxford University has its own Bridge of Sighs, at Hertford College (right), though it apparently was never used for the same purpose as the Venetian (mercifully). In fact, although it is labelled the "Bridge of Sighs" on all maps of Oxford, it is not called that in the College, simply "the Bridge"; and it looks more like Venice's Rialto Bridge than the Bridge of Sighs. Cambridge University also has a Bridge of Sighs
, across the Cam River, at St. John's College (left). The Campanile on the Berkeley campus of the University of California (the Sather Tower, below right), on the other hand, almost identical in appearance to the one in Venice, houses a fine carillon, a sort of organ with bells instead of pipes.
Poised between Francia and Romania, Venice thus preserves much of the beauty and atmosphere that was lost and forgotten after successive catastrophies to Constantinople. The City ended up itself as something out of its time, a Mediaeval Republic in an age of nation states, even as now it is rather like a living museum, slowly sinking into the lagoon that originally gave it refuge.
Indeed, the low muddy islands in the lagoon, once a redoubt, now are Venice's greatest peril. With zero elevation, the City is vulnerable to high seas, high tides, and any significant changes in sea level. Pumping out ground water under the City, long the simplest source of fresh water, threatened to leave it permanently awash. That danger was soon recognized and attempts have even been made to restore the water, though that is more difficult. Barriers may soon seal off the lagoon from the Adriatic, but this raises the problem of discharging the waste water brought down from inland cities. Any durable solution promises to be difficult, expensive, and perilous to the traditional character of the City.
Patriarchs of Aquileia, Grado, and Venice
B. REVIVAL AND ASCENDENCY, 802-1059, 257 years
400 years after the opportunity might have originally presented itself, a German finally claimed the title of Roman Emperor. This was the Frank Charlemagne, in a move legitimized by the Pope and by the reign of a woman, Irene, in Constantinople. For a while, Francia looked larger and much more powerful than Romania, but institutionally it was nowhere as sound or durable. The Empire of Charlemagne fragmented among his heirs and lapsed into feudalism, a system for government without cash or literacy. Meanwhile, Romania, with institutional continuity, commercial culture, and education, began to recover its strength, despite some severe blows continuing to fall.
| 1. NICEPHORANS | |
|---|---|
| Nicephorus I | 802-811 |
| killed in battle of Pliska by Bulgar Khan Krum, 811 | |
| Stauracius | 811, d.812 |
| paralyzed from wound, battle of Pliska, deposed, to monastery, 811 | |
| Michael I Rhangabé | 811-813 |
| Leo V the Armenian | 813-820 |
| Iconoclasm restored, 815; first Varangian (Viking) raids in Anatolia, 818 | |
Arab raids into Anatolia, the population and the economy of the empire were actually growing, and Nicephorus was able to start transplanting colonies of people from the east back into Greece. This soon led to the recovery of most of the Greek peninsula. It is hard to know how much this means Modern Greeks are descendants, not just of Greeks, but of Phrygians, Galatians, Isaurians, and other ancient (and extinct) inhabitants of Anatolia, as well as Slavs who had migrated into Greece and become assimilated. Unfortunately for him, the "revival" was not without its setbacks. Nicephorus ended up killed in battle against the Bulgars, becoming one of the small number of Roman Emperors dying in battle against a foreign enemy. His skull was made into a drinking cup up by the Bulgar Khan Krum. His son Stauracius, proclaimed Emperor after the battle, turned out to be paralyzed from a spinal wound. His attempt to vest the throne in his wife Theophano (reportedly an Athenian relative of Irene), was foiled by his sister Procopia and her husband Michael Rhangabé. Michael then was inactive and indecisive and was overthrown by Leo the Armenian, an in-law of the subsequent Amorian dynasty. It would be some time before the Bulgars could be seriously defeated, much less subdued. Until then, it would be impossible to restore the Danube border.| 2. AMORIANS (PHRYGIANS) | |
|---|---|
| Michael II the Stammerer | 820-829 |
| Crete lost, 823; Sicily invaded by Aghlabids, 827 | |
| Theophilus I | 829-842 |
| Palermo lost, 831; Caliph Mu'tas.im invades Anatolia, defeats Romans at Dazimon, sacks Ancyra & Amoricum, 838; Varangians arrive at Constantinople, 839 | |
| Theodora | Regent, 842-856 |
| Michael III | 842-867 |
| Final repudiation of Iconoclasm, 843; Varangians attack Constantinople, 860 | |
| (Theophilus II) | 867 |
In this period we also find the last of Iconoclasm laid to rest, though one will note even today that the Orthodox Churches prefer Icons rather than sculpture for sacred images. The resolution of this conflict removed a point of friction between the Western and the Eastern Churches. It did reveal, however, how easily such conflict could arise. The later (1054) Schism of the Churches would be over apparently much more trivial issues -- the real issue, of course, was simply authority. The military successes of Iconoclast Emperors came to a dramatic end in 838, when the Caliph Mu'tas.im invaded Anatolia, defeated and very nearly captured Theophilus, and then destroyed the Emperor's own home town, Amoricum, enslaving the population. When Theophilus died young, leaving only a young son, the Empress Theodora, as Regent, moved to end Iconoclasm. At a Council in 843, on the first Sunday in Lent, the Iconoclast Patriarch John the Grammarian was deposed and the Iconophile Methodius installed as Patriarch. The Icons were restored. Orthodox Churches still commemorate the restoration of the icons on the first Sunday of Lent, which is called the "Sunday of Orthodoxy." Since Orthodox Churches use the Julian Calendar, this day can be more than a month after the first Sunday of Lent on the Gregorian calendar.
By the time of the Amorians, the Army has settled into its classic form and is much improved in numbers, organization, and effectiveness. The loss of Sicily and Crete is not encouraging, but the heartland of Anatolia is being defended with increasing success, and the lost territories in the Balkans are now being recovered and resettled. Bulgaria stands in the way in that direction and will eventually be dealt with. By 878 Sicily will be lost forever. It is possible that it could have been recovered, but now the remoteness of the command, and eventual disloyalty of the Norman mercenaries, will snuff out such a hope. This is the army with which the Macedonians will eventually defeat and conquer Bulgaria, pass through the Cilician Gates, recover Antioch, and invade Syria. Later, when the Thematic forces are neglected, the mobile army, the Tagmata, will prove insufficient, as the Moble Army alone had earlier in the Fifth Century.
The arrival of the Varangians (839), which meant the Vikings who had come down the rivers of Russia, added a new element to Roman history. Constantinople became to them Miklagarð, or Mikligarð (Mikligarðr with the nominative ending), but often rendered Miklagard, Miklagarth, or Miklegarth -- the "Great City." Here the element mik- is cognate to mag- in Latin magnus and meg- in Greek megas, both "great." Curiously, there is an archaic adjective in English, "mickle," meaning "great" or "large," which is this very same word. A cognate survives in recent English, the humble word "much." The other element, gard (Old Norse garðr), "enclosed," is cognate to English "garden" and "yard" (and the name "Garth") as well as to gorod and grad, "city," in Russian -- as in Tsargrad for Constantinople. We see this element in Midgard, or Miðgarðr, "Middle Earth," the realm of men in Old Norse and in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The "Great City" (we could say "Mickleyard" with English words) could not have been more appropriate, since Constantinople was the largest city in Europe until at least the 13th century, as it was the center of the only real cash economy in Europe perhaps until the 11th century. Relations with the Varangians rocked back and forth between war and trade, mainly depending on what they thought they could get away with -- they would be prepared for both. The contact in 839 was an embassy, which had encountered sufficient difficulties coming down the rivers of Russia that it requested the good offices of the Emperor in negotiating passage back by way of the Frankish realm of Louis the Pious. Louis already knew about Viking raids and was suspicious that these travelers, although vouched for by Constantinople, were nevertheless of their kind. Assured (falsely) that they were not, the embassy was allowed to pass. Soon, Varangians would have little fear of traversing Russia and would begin raiding Roman territory and even attacking Constantinople. As it happened, the Norsemen were rather less successful against the Romans than they were against the Franks, and bouts of attacks were usually followed by treaties -- where such reconciliation was rarely necessary in the West. To the Varangians, the Roman Emperor becomes in Old Norse the Stólkonungr, the "Great King," with "great" in this case borrowed from Old Russian (as in Stolnyi Knyaz, the "great prince" of Kiev -- stolnyi does not have this meaning in Modern Russian), and "king" (konung) familiar from other Germanic languages (e.g. German könig). This echoes Megas Basileus in Greek, the translation of the title of the Great Kings of Persia and the origin of the use of Basileus for "Emperor" in Mediaeval Greek.
We are approaching the point in European history where the remaining pagan peoples of Europe will be assimilated to Christian civilization. Bulgaria will lead the way, but it will soon be following by Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Scandinavia. The Pechenegs (or Patzinaks), a Turkic steppe people, will remain pagans until they are swept from history by the Cumans and Mongols. On the east edge of the map is the Khanate of the Khazars, also Turkic, who actually converted to Judaism. They would be Roman allies until disappearing in the 11th century. Shown on the map are the tracks of several raids by the Magyars into Francia. It is striking how far afield they go. A more intimate picture is provided elsewhere for Burgundy.
| 3. BULGARIA BEFORE ROMAN CONQUEST | |
|---|---|
| Asparukh | Qaghan, c.681-701 |
| Tervel | c.701-c.718 |
| helps restore Justinian II, 705 | |
| Sevar | c.718-750 |
| Kormesios | 750-762 |
| Vinekh | 762-763 |
| Teletz | |
| after defeat by Romans, Teletz killed, Vinekh deposed, flees to Romans, 763 | |
| Umar | 763 |
| Baian | 763-765 |
| Tokt | 765 |
| Telerig | c.765-777 |
| defeated by Romans, 774 | |
| Kardam | c.777-c.803 |
| Krum | c.803-814 |
| Kills Emperor Nicephorus in battle, 811; uses his skull as a drinking cup | |
| Dukum | 814-815 |
| Ditzveg | 814-816 |
| Omurtag | 814-831 |
| Malamir/Malomir | 831-836 |
| Presijan | 836-852 |
| Boris I/ Emperor Michael I | Qaghan, 852-870 |
| Emperor/Tsar, 870-889, d.907 | |
| Council VIII, Constantinople IV, 869-870; conversion of Bulgaria announced | |
| Vladimir | 889-893 |
| Simeon I the Great | 893-927 |
| Peter I | 927-969 |
| Boris II | 969-972, d.986 |
| Bulgaria conquered by John I Tzimisces, 971 | |
| Macedonian Bulgaria; state organized in western Bulgaria by the Cometopuli, "Sons of the Count" | |
| Tsar Romanus | figurehead, 986-997; captured, 991 |
| Samuel | 997-1014 |
| Army annihilated by Basil II, 1014 | |
| Gabriel Radomir | 1014-1015 |
| John Vladislav | 1015-1018 |
| Bulgaria annexed by Basil II, 1018 | |
of as simply a Slavic people, like the Russians or Serbs, they were originally a nomadic Turkic steppe people, more like the Huns or Mongols. The first title of their leaders here, qaghan, is recognizably more Mongolian than the form more familiar from Turkish, khân. The Slavs, who had breached the Danube with the Avars, but who had little in the way of indigenous political organization, then came under the control of the Bulgars, the next nomadic group to pop off the end of the steppe. A related people, the Khazars, who remained on the Lower Volga, became long term Roman allies against the Bulgars. 
Other related peoples, the Patzinaks and Cumans, followed the Bulgars off the steppe and into the Balkans, though not permanently south of the Danube. After the Cumans, the Mongols were the last steppe people to come into Europe. Through the Middle East, of course, the Turks (and the Mongols) came off the steppe and ultimately, permanently, into Azerbaijan, Anatolia, and Thrace.
Fans of Robert E. Howard's (1906-1936) classic pulp fiction character Conan the Barbarian, will find the name of the Bulgar Qaghan Krum somewhat familiar -- it is rather like Conan's own personal god, "Crom." Krum, indeed, seems very Conan-like. Not only was the Emperor Nicephorus killed in battle, but Krum took his skull and turned it into a drinking cup. This sounds like "barbarism" indeed -- though Lord Kitchener (1850-1916) may have had something similar in mind when he removed the body of the Sudanese Mahdi from his tomb, after taking Khartoum in 1898.
More recently, readers of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire [J.K. Rowling, Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic, Inc., 2000] will remember that the champion Bulgarian Quidditch player was none other than Viktor Krum.
What happened to the Bulgars was assimilation. The Patzinaks pushed them off the steppe, they began to speak the language of their Slavic subjects, and they began to aspire to the civilization, if not the throne, of Constantinople. The conversion of the Bulgars, indeed, was a complicated political act, with sophisticated negotiations that played the Popes off the Emperors. Greek influence ended up predominating, but the Bulgars continued jealous of their autonomy -- the precedent of an autocephalous Church set the pattern for other Orthodox Churches, as in Russia, created under Roman auspices. The Qaghan Boris The newly developed Cyrillic alphabet, based on the "glagolitic" alphabet invented for Moravia by Sts. Cyril (Constantine, 827-869) and Methodius (826-885), was used for the Slavic language of the new Bulgarian national Church. This language, Old Church Slavonic or Old Bulgarian, is the oldest attested Slavic language and retains features apparently ancestral of most modern Slavic languages -- although different texts also display influence (or emergent features) from the local languages, Czech, Bulgarian, and Serbian, in the areas where it was used. At right is the Cyrillic alphabet of Old Church Slavonic. I have used some letters in the modern form rather than with the more traditional appearance, which is more obviously Greek. Various modern Cyrillic alphabets, which can be examined under the treatment of the Slavic languages, often employ different selections of letters from the full original alphabet -- although there is the possibility that some letters were later contributed, again, by local languages, like Serbian (cf. S.C. Gardiner, Old Church Slavonic, Cambridge, 1984, 2008, pp. 13-14). It will be noted that this alphabet contains more dedicated palatalizing vowels than the modern languages that continue to use this device.
An interesting case is the way "u" is written. Old Church Slavonic writes the Greek digraph The signs Although remaining a formidable foe, the Bulgars were probably softened by their assimilation and civilization. As the Empire itself grew in strength, the day came when Bulgaria was defeated and subjugated. Lists of Bulgarian rulers can be found in various Byzantine histories, but the genealogy here only comes from the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume II, Part 2, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs- und Fürstenhäuser II Nord-, Ost- und Südeuropa [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Part 2, Second Edition, 1997, pp.156-159].
took the Christian name Michael (though both names would be used in the future), but retained a status comparable to the Roman Emperor.
. 
We also see the ligature 
for "iu," which affixes an "i" an drops the "y." This is the only such ligature still used in modern Cyrillic alphabets, despite the presence of no less than five of them in Old Church Cyrillic -- the available ligature 
is replaced by 
in Russian, Bulgarian, etc., although I imagine that the latter may be a modification of the former. Since the Greek digraph is redundant, modern Cyrillic alphabets simply write "u" with 
.
and 
, which apparently were vowels in Old Church Slavonic, of uncertain quality (as the vocalization of Old Church Slavonic is disputed), have now either become markers of "solf" and "hard" consonsants, as in Russian, or have been dropped, as in Serbian. These are divergent strategies that both go back to Old Church Slavonic. We also get nasalized vowels in Old Church Slavonic, 
and 
, marked with tildes here (the IPA diacritic), but elsewhere with a subscript hook, as in Polish, where such nasals survive.
The first step merely left it leaderless, as John Tzimisces took Emperor Boris II off to Constantinople. A new state was organized in the west, however, by the sons of the Bulgar governor Count Nicholas. These "Sons of the Count," Cometopuli, eventually got an Emperor back after Boris and his brother Romanus escaped captivity. Boris was accidentally killed, so Romanus became the (largely figurehead) ruler. After Romanus died, the Cometopulus Samuel succeeded him. The Emperor Basil II, after humiliating defeat by the Bulgars in his youth, then smashed and annexed this state, with a ferocity that that might have made Krum (or Conan) proud. Samuel is supposed to have dropped dead when he saw that Basil had blinded all the survivors of the Bulgarian army (leaving every tenth man with one eye to lead the rest) -- although the later references to this are now often doubted. Bulgaria would not reemerge until the Asen brothers led it to independence in 1186. After the Turkish conquest, modern Bulgaria did not emerge until 1878.
| 4. MACEDONIANS | |
|---|---|
| Basil I | 867-886 |
| Aghlabids sack Ostia & (suburbs of?) Rome, including the Vatican, 843, 846; Varangians attack Constantinople, 865; Ecumenical Council VIII, Constantinople IV, 869-870 -- reconciles Eastern and Western Churches but is later repudiated by East; conversion of Bulgaria announced; Syracuse falls to Aghlabids, 878; fleet sent to Naples to patrol against Arabs, 879; Venice effectively independent, 886 | |
| Leo VI the Wise | 886-912 |
| Campaign of Nicephorus Phocas in Italy, 883-886; invasion of Calabria by Aghlabid Amîr 'Abdullâh II, 902-903; Thessalonica sacked by renegade Leo of Tripoli, population enslaved, 904; in retaliation, Tarsus sacked by the Logothete Himerius, 905; Varangians/Russians attack Constantinople, 907; treaty with Oleg of Kiev, provision of mercenaries, 911 | |
| Alexander | 912-913 |
| Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus | 913-959 |
| Greek Anthology edition of Constantine Cephalas, c.930-950; embassy of Liutprand of Cremona from Berengar II of Italy, 949 | |
| Romanus I Lecapenus | 919-944 |
| Defeat at Basintello by Lombards, 929; Fleet of Arab pirates destroyed off Provence, 941; Varangians/Russians attack Constantinople, 941, 944; Treaty, 944 | |
| Stephen & Constantine | 944-945 |
| Romanus II | 959-963 |
| Crete recovered, 961; foundation of Great Laura Monastery on Mt. Athos, 963 | |
| Nicephorus II Phocas | 963-969 |
| Failed invasion of Sicily, Cyprus recovered, 964; Cilicia & Tarsus recovered, 965; embassy with Liutprand of Cremona from Emperor Otto I, 968; Antioch recovered from H.amdânids, 969 | |
| John I Tzimisces | 969-976 |
| Russian Prince Sviatoslav defeated, Bulgaria conquered, 971; Charter for Mt. Áthôs, 972 | |
| Basil II Bulgaroctonus | 963-1025 |
| rebellion of Bardas Phocas, 987-988; Varangian Guard, 988; Conversion of St. Vladimir, 989; Bulgarian Army annihilated, 1014; Macedonian Bulgaria annexed, 1018 | |
| Constantine VIII | 976-1028 |
| Zoë Porphyrogenita | 1028-1050 |
| Romanus III Argyrus | 1028-1034 |
| Michael IV the Paphlagonian | 1034-1041 |
| beginning of debasement of the solidus; Harald Hardråde serves in Varangian Guard, 1034-1044; intervention of Constantine Ops in Sicily, 1037; campaign of George Maniaces in Sicily, Messina & Syracuse reconquered, 1038-1040; defection of Norman mercenaries, Maniaces arrested, rebellion in Italy, 1040; Sicily abandoned, 1042 | |
| Michael V Calaphates | 1041-1042 |
| Normans win Battles of Venosa/Olviento & Montepeloso, in Apulia, 1041; Maniaces reinstated, Michael attempts coup against Zoë, fails, blinded, 1042 | |
| Theodora Porphyrogenita | 1042-1056 |
| Constantine IX Monomachus | 1042-1055 |
| Pays for rebuilding the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 1040's; revolt & death of George Maniaces, 1043; Russians attack Constantinople, 1043; occupation of Armenia, 1045; Charter for Mt. Áthôs, Schism between Eastern and Western Churches, 1054 | |
| non-dynastic | |
| Michael VI Stratioticus | 1056-1057 |
| Isaac I Comnenus | 1057-1059 |
But, ironically, the dynasty may actually descend from Michael III rather than from Basil. Basil had been induced to marry Michael's mistress; and although the marriage continued even after Basil had overthrown Michael, the first children may still have been Michael's.
One of the most successful Emperor-Regent-in-laws, Nicephorus II Phocas, unintentionally played an important part in the history of Armenia. After reconquering Cilicia and Tarsus, in the Taurus and Anti-Taurus Mountains, and expelling the local Muslims in 965, Nicephorus encouraged Christians from Syria and Armenia to settle the area. Subsequently, when the Turks poured into Anatolia after the epic defeat at Manzikert in 1071, the Christians of the Taurus were relatively safe in the mountains, and the Turkish flood washed around them. This led to the creation of the durable Kingdom of Lesser Armenia (1080-1375). The Armenians of Lesser Armenia were then probably the Christians of the Middle East with the best relations with the Crusaders, including intermarriage. It is now not often noted, but Lesser Armenia became such a center of Armenian life at the time that the Armenian Patriarchate relocated there from Armenia. From 1058 to 1441, this was the only Armenian Patriarchate. Even the reestablishment of Patriarchs in Armenia did not interrupt the line of succession in Cilicia, which henceforth became know as the Great House of Cilicia. This succession continues to the present and even remained in the Taurus, long after the extinction of the Armenian Kingdom, until 1930, when the Patriarchs joined Armenian refugees in Lebanon, where they remain. In the years of the isolation of Soviet Armenia, the center of international Armenian life was this Patriarchate in Lebanon. This is now obscured by the independence of Armenia in 1991 and the emigration of many Armenians from the former Soviet Union into the West. Their culture, influenced by the corruption of Soviet life, and even their language (Eastern rather than Western Armenian), is distinct from that of the Lebanese Armenians who used to dominate, for instance, Armenian immigration to the United States.
In the early days of the dynasty we get a benchmark on the survival of Classical and later Greek literature. The Bibliotheca of the Patriarch of Constantinople Photius (858-867, 877-886) contains 280 reviews. Even Edward Gibbon refers to this as "a living monument of erudition and criticism" [The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume III, Modern Library, p.297]. It is not a catalogue of existing literature, or of a particular library, not even that of Photius, but a treatment of works familiar to Photius, apart from the mainstream of general education, that Photius is recommending to his brother Tarasius. Thus, popular authors like Homer, Plato, Aristotle, or the Greek playwrights (except for some lost plays of Aeschylus!) are missing from the list. Photius' treatment ranges from brief descriptions and evaluations to long summaries and discussions. Of the 386 works mentioned by Photius, 239 are theological. Nevertheless, only 43% of the text actually focuses on them. The majority of the text (in a book whose modern edition in Greek is 1600 pages long) is thus secular. For example, in addressing A History of Events After Alexander (in ten books) by the Roman historian Arrian of Nicomedia (an early member of the Second Sophistic), we get a long summary of those very events, which are often obscure enough that every description helps. Although much of Arrian survives, and his Anabasis Alexandri is the best account of the campaigns of Alexander, all we have of A History of Events After Alexander is Photius' summary. Our benchmark is that about half of the works mentioned by Photius, like the Events, are now lost. It is distressing to think of what survived, despite the Dark Ages, and then what later disasters, like the Fourth Crusade, may have cost us. It is hard to imagine an undisturbed Constantinople being subsequently so careless with its literary heritage. At no other Court of the age could visitors have found the nobility quoting Homer. [cf. Photius, The Bibliotheca, A selection translated with notes by N.G. Wilson, Duckworth, London, 1994.] Photius, whose Bibliotheca was only part of his literary output, was a major political figure and himself was responsible for the mission of Sts. Cyril (Constantine, 827-869) and Methodius (826-885) to convert the Slavs.
The map shows Romania in 1000 AD, at the Millennium, with the height of Middle Romanian power rapidly approaching. The extent of Bulgaria is open to question. Some sources say it stretched to the Black Sea. Whatever, it will soon be erased.
The climax of Mediaeval Romania came with the Emperor Basil II Bulgaroctonus ("Bulgar Slayer," Bulgarentöter in German). He also happened to be ruling at the turn of the first Millennium, which is of some interest as we have now seen the year 2000. 
Christendom had been having a bad time for several centuries, but things were looking up in 1000. After a long minority with in-laws ruling as co-regents, Basil defeated and captured an entire Bulgarian army in 1014. He blinded every prisoner, except for one eye left to every tenth man, so they could lead their fellows home. The Tsar Samuel is supposed to have dropped dead when he beheld the mutilated men returning. There is no contemporary record of this mass blinding, and its historicity is now often questioned. Whether anything quite like this happened or not, however, Bulgaria only lasted four more years before being annexed.
Meanwhile, the Varangians had created a powerful state at Kiev; and, as the "Rus," their name came to be attached to it -- giving us 
in Greek, "Russia" in Latin. The alternation of war and trade that had characterized Roman relations with the Varangians, and which led to sharp defeats of Russia by John Tzimisces, took a greater turn toward friendship in Basil's day with the conversion of St. Vladimir to Christianity (989). Part of this process involved the marriage of Basil's sister Anna to Vladimir, and the provision by Russia of mercenaries for what now became the Emperor's "Varangian Guard." 
The Guard became the loyal shock troops and Life Guard of the Emperor, and are usually identifiable in historical accounts, even if not named as such, by their description as pelekophoroi (pelekyphóroi in Attic Greek), "axe bearers," from the single bladed axe (pélekys), with a handle up to six feet long, that they carried as their primary weapon (seen in the image at right from the history of John Scylitzes, c.1057). There also seems to have been some identification of this weapon with the fasces carried by the Lictors of the Roman Republic. Indeed, the appearance of the great axes on the battlefield came to signal the personal presence of the Emperor (although Varangians at first were often detailed to fight with other forces, as in Italy).
After the formation of the Varangian Guard, it quickly no longer became a matter of mercenaries provided by Russia. The fame of the unit spread quickly, and soon individual recruits were arriving, not just from Russia (and now of Slavic and not just Varangian origin), and not just from the immediate source of Russian Varangians, Sweden, but from as far away as Norway, Denmark, and even Iceland -- all the Norse lands, which by this point had converted to Christianity. Since all these places were outside the limits of Classical geography, we find Anna Comnena characterizing all the Varangians, including the English ones, as from "Thule," 
. This was conformable to ideas in geographers like Strabo, who refers to "Thule, the most northerly of the Britannic Islands," "six days sail north of Britain," although he expressed some skepticism about its existence. Thus, Gibbon speaks of "the British island of Thule," which now sounds very odd [The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume III, Modern Library, p.368]. "Six days sail north of Britain," however, which was the formula of the Greek explorer Pytheas, might very well get us from Britain to Norway.
The Norse recruits included the very interesting Harald Hardråde (or Haraldr Sigurðarson, Haraldr Harðráði), the subsequent King of Norway who would die in 1066 at Stamford Bridge, while invading England. The deeds of Harald and others would be recounted in the Icelandic Sagas, often written much later with fabulous or fanciful additions, but with sufficient detail to pin down their historical origins. Also, numerous rune stones have been found in Sweden, often at churches for the now Christian Swedes, that stand as cenotaphs or commemorative monuments to men who left for Romania (Grikland, Kirkium, etc., "Greece") and never came back. Some were installed before leaving by the men themselves. Some, of course, may have been for traders rather than members of the Varangian Guard, but a few mention deaths fighting in Serkland, i.e. Islamic lands (where the "Saracens" are), or in 
Lakbarþland, i.e. Langobardia, "Italy." In time, the Norse recruits apparently obtained their own church in Constantinople, at least in part dedicated to St. Olaf (or Olof, Olav) of Norway, Harald's brother, perhaps enshrining a sword that was supposed to have been his. Indeed, the 15-year-old Harald was present at the battle of Stiklestad in 1030, where Olaf was killed -- with reports of miracles immediately following. Harald fled with 500 retainers all the way to Constantinople, perhaps carrying such a relic of Olaf that could have been enshrined in the church. In King Harald's Saga, we have Olaf appearing in visions to help Harald; and the Norse church is said to have been constructed on the spot of such a vision [cf. The Varangians of Byzantium by Sigfús Blöndal and Benedikt S. Benedikz, Cambridge University Press, 1978, 1981, 2007; Snorri Sturluson, King Harald's Saga, Penguin, 1966, 2005, p.61].
It is noteworthy that while the legend and the romance of the Vikings is still a part of popular culture (I was entranced by The Vikings [1958], which I saw at Holloman Air Force Base in 1962), and most people retain an image of Viking barbarians fighting, looting, slaughtering, drinking, and raping (this is romance?), such awareness promply shuts down when the Norsemen convert to Christianity. Presumably, they stop the looting and raping, and the reaction, as from Hollywood, is "You're no fun anymore!" (except for a movie like Ingmar Bergman's Virgin Spring [1960]). But even as Christians, many Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians were still looking for a good fight; and to find it they traveled to the greatest and most famous Christian monarch: The Emperor of the Romans. Since they kept doing that for centuries, the word of mouth about their experiences must have been positive. It was a good fight, if not always a successful one.
Having experienced the Millennium of the year 2000 in our day, we have the movie, End of Days (Universal, 1999), with Arnold Schwarzenegger personally battling Satan, who is said to be released every thousand years (a somewhat loose reading of the Book of Revelation). This would mean that a similar difficulty occurred in 999, as well as 1999. Arnold wasn't around then, but Basil II was -- not only a great warrior but an Emperor who maintained a monk-like celibacy, and who was seen by most Christians as the principal defender of Christendom, as the Emperors had been since Constantine. Somebody missed a bet for a good movie, or at least a flashback, about that -- End of Days itself could have had a flashback explaining how Satan was easily thwarted in 999 by the undiminished wisdom, strength, and preparedness of Basil, Pope Sylvester II (this was before the Schism), and the Patriarch Sergius II of Constantinople.
The monks of the "Holy Mountain," Hágion Óros, Mt. Áthôs, could be brought into any story of the Millennium. The Great Laura Monastery, the first of many in this most sacred place, the Mt. Hiei, 
, of Orthodox Christianity, had recently been built (961-963) by St. Athanasius. Tradition holds with some earlier foundations, and several small hermitages, as well as individual hermits in caves and elsewhere, certainly had been there for some time; but the Great Laura is the first for which there is contemporary historical documentation.
Áthôs is the most north-eastern of three peninsulas that extend out into the Aegean Sea from the larger peninsula of the Chalcidice. There are still 20 active monasteries on the Mountain, with a number of smaller settlements and institutions. The road from the mainland ends at Uranopolis (or Ouranoupoli, one now usually sees spellings that reflect modern Greek pronunciation -- 
I have Latinized many of the names, but the spelling of the monasteries especially reflects this trend). From there one (men only) must take a boat down to Daphne. From Daphne a road, recently built, goes up to Caryes (Karyes, Karyai), the town that is the administrative center of the Mountain, on the land of the Koutloumousiou Monastery. Although most Greek churches operate under the authority of the autocephalous Greek Orthodox Church, Mt. Áthôs is still under the direct jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople, i.e. the "Ecumenical" Patriarch in Istanbul. Over the years, monasteries were founded, not just by Greeks, but by Georgians, Serbs, Bulgarians, Russians, and even Italians. The Italians are now gone (there being the Schism and all), but there are also (modern) Romanians present, though they do not have their own monastery. Mt. Áthôs thus unites all the Orthodox Churches who share the theology of Constantinople. The mysticism of the theology of Mt. Áthôs contrasts with the humanism of Mistra -- this is discussed elsewhere in relation to the Renaissance.
Sadly, the great triumph of Romania was short-lived. The last Emperors of the Dynasty, all by marriage, squandered the strength of the State, debased the coinage, and neglected the thematic forces that had been the military foundation of Romania for four hundred years -- in part by now ignoring, as Basil II had not, the alienation of the land of thematic soldiers to large landowners who did not have the same military obligations. This was a kind of creeping feudalism, which Romania had previously avoided. Full feudalism has quashed, ironically, because of the Turkish conquest. What was left of the Army, the Imperial guards of professionals and mercenaries, could not be relied upon in all circumstances, as Machiavelli would have warned, especially after the finances of the state were messed up. Before things had gone that far, however, we see that the attempt of Michael V, at the death of his uncle (?) Michael IV, to depose the Empress Zoë provoked a popular revolt. This included the Varangian Guard, which may have actually been commanded at the time by Harald Hardråde (1042). According to King Harald's Sage, Harald led the Guard to seize and blind Michael (whom it confuses with his successor, Constantine IX). This personal loyalty to Zoë, and her sister Theodora, was the best tribute to the faltering Macedonian dynasty.
Most symbolically, the breach between the Eastern and Western Churches in 1054 was the one that became permanent and henceforth separated the One Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church into the Pope's Latin Church, usually called "Roman Catholic," and the Patriarch of Constantinople's Greek Church, traditionally called "Greek Orthodox" -- along with the other autocephalous "Orthodox" Churches (Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Romanian, etc.). There had been similar estrangements earlier, which had always been patched up without much in the way of hard feelings. This was the expectation at the time; and the handling of the matter was so casual that later, when it became apparent that the breach was becoming permanent, the original documents could not even be found. The estrangement in religion came at a very bad time. When the Turks invaded Anatolia and the Crusading forces arrived from Francia, the Schism was a source of constant irritation and mistrust. It provided some rationalization for the seizure of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade; and later, when the Churches were apparently reconciled by the Palaeologi, it left most Greeks so disaffected that their support for their own government was compromised. Thus, for centuries, Christian forces were divided and weakened in the continuing confrontation with Islâm.
Below we see the confusion over the paternity of Leo VI. The greatest controversy of Leo's reign, however, was over his own marriages. He disliked his first wife, from an arranged marriage. She and their daughter died in the early years of his reign. He was then able to marry his long time mistress, Zoe. After delivering their daughter Anna, however, who would later marry Louis of Burgundy, Zoe soon died. This created a problem. 
Unlike Henry VIII, whose problem was that he wanted divorces, Leo's problem was that in the Greek Orthodox Church second marriages, even after the death of a spouse, were discouraged and third marriages strongely condemned. While theoretically there was no provision for raison d'état, we can imagine the overriding need to provide an Heir for the Dynasty. The Patriarch, successor to Leo's own brother Stephen, granted a dispensation. His new wife, Eudocia, then died in childbirth, followed shortly by the infant son. Now Leo really had a problem. St. Basil had said that fourth marriages were the equivalent of polygamy, "a practice bestial and wholly alien to humankind." Leo therefore took a mistress, Zoe Carbonopsina ("Coal Black Eyes"), who then in 905 gave birth to a son, destined to be Constantine VII -- ironically the Porphyrogenitus, "Born in the Purple" (I love this in German -- der Purpurgeborene), who nevertheless had been born a bastard. The Patriarch, now Nicholas I Mysticus, refused to baptize the boy unless Zoe was expelled from the Palace. She was. But Constantine was still a bastard, so Leo brought Zoe back and got a priest to marry them and legitimize the Heir. The result was considerable furor. Leo cleverly played the Photian and Ignatian factions of the Greek Church off each other and meanwhile appealed to Pope Sergius III. The Latin Church had no problem with serial marriages, just with divorce. So, in 907, with Sergius' belessing, Leo deposed Patriarch Nicholas (who would subsequently be restored), and installed Euthymius I, who was persuaded to agree with the Papal ruling (more or less). Thus, where Henry VIII broke with the Pope (Clement VII), and abolished the whole Church of Rome in England, in pursuit of a male heir, Leo's own pursuit was consummated by the timely help of the Pope, when the Greek and Latin halves were still One Roman Catholic Church (Una Romana Catholica Ecclesia), against the Patriarch. Leo did not long outlive the controversy.
Subsequently, in the minorities of Constantine VII, Basil II, and Constantine VIII, we see multiple reigns from Imperial in-laws. Romanus I almost derailed the dynasty; but John I and Nicephorus II were extremely vigorous and successful in retrieving Romanian fortunes and territory, progress finally to be sealed by the adult Basil. This great Basil, however, had remained celibate and irresponsibly failed to provide for the future of the family (so unlike Charles II of England, who not only arranged key marriages for his nieces, Mary and Ann, but had ironically, as a Catholic sympathizer himself, required that they be raised Protestant, thereby securing a Protestant succession in Britain after the inevitable disaster of his foolish Catholic brother James II). After the death of Constantine VIII, only Theodora and Zoë, whom Basil had allowed to become nuns, remained of the Dynasty. Zoë endured three marriages to provide male sovereigns. These in-laws were as bad for the Empire as the earlier ones had been good. After the death of Constantine Monomachus, Theodora briefly reigned alone at the end of the line. Note the marriage of Maria Argyropoulaina to a son of the Doge of Venice. This was arranged by Basil II well before the marriage of Romanus III Argyrus to Zoë. Maria is supposed to have introduced the fork to Venice when arriving there with Giovanni in 1004 or 1005 [cf. Judith Herrin, "Venice and the Fork," Byzantium, The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire, Princeton & Oxford, 2007, pp.203-205].
The genealogy of the Macedonians is supplemented here with an abbreviated tree showing the major foreign marriages of the Dynasty. The marriage of Constantine VII to the daughter of Hugh of Arles is shown above, but there are four other marriages noted here. 
Two of them are not attested by all sources. Leo VI did have a daughter Anna (by his second wife), and marrying her to Hugh's predecessor in Burgundy, while his son married Hugh's daughter, produces a reasonable reciprocity; but marrying a true Porphyrogenita (Porphyrogennêtos -- in Greek a compound, although feminine, retains the second declension ending, -os, otherwise used for masculines), a "Born in the Purple" Princess, to a barbarian king (which is what Louis III would have seemed to most), is something that some sources say was inconceivable, which is why all that the Emperor Otto II got was merely the niece of an Imperial in-law, John Tzimisces. Theophano was no Porphyrogenita (though some sources can be found referring to her as John's own daughter, or even as a daughter of Romanus II). Constantine VII himself asserted that a Porphyrogenita could not be married to a foreign prince -- although he then made an exception for the Franks. The most significant exception, however, would be St. Vladimir, who certainty did marry the Porphyrogenita sister, Anna, of Basil II and Constantine VIII. Since this attended the conversion of Russia to Christianity (989), with the material contribution of Russian (Varangian) troops to the Roman Army, it could well have been thought worth the price.
The final marriage here is the potentially the most interesting but also somewhat problematic. Brian Tompsett's Royal and Noble Genealogy gives a sister "Irene" for the Empresses Zoë and Theodora, who is said to have married Vsevolod of Kiev, grandson (by an earlier marriage) of St. Vladimir [still listed this way as of June 2011]. I have not seen a single Macedonian genealogy that lists such an "Irene." This is of great interest because their son, Vladimir II, was the grandfather of Ingeborg of Novgorod, who married (1118) Knut Lavard Eriksson, the father of King Valdemar the Great of Denmark (1157-1182). Through the intermarriages of the subsequent royalty of Denmark, we get connections to many of the rulers of Europe. Thus, it is sometimes said that Queen Elizabeth II of England is a descendant of the Emperor Basil I. But that would only be true if Irene really was a Macedonian.
Other sources have a slightly different claim. The Royal Families of Medieval Scandinavia, Flanders, and Kiev, by Rupert Alen and Anna Marie Dahlquist [Kings River Publications, Kingsburg, CA, 1997], says that Irene (or Irina) was "a daughter of Constantine IX Monomach" [p.160]. That is a lot different. Constantine was the Empress Zoë's third husband. She was already 64 when they married, so there is not much chance that Irene was her child, but Constantine was a widower (twice), and it is not surprising that he would have previous children, although Byzantine histories don't seem to bother addressing the issue. Vladimir II is called "Monomakh," which thus sounds like a tribute to his Roman grandfather.
Constantine IX's parentage for Irene is confirmed by the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume II, Part 2, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs- und Fürstenhäuser II Nord-, Ost- und Südeuropa [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Part 2, Second Edition, 1997, p.81] and Volume III, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs- und Fürstenhäuser, Ergänzungsband [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Second Edition, 2001, p.218]. This gives us a much more reasonable picture. It does mean that Queen Elizabeth is not a descendant of Basil I (or Michael III, whatever); but she is a descendant of Constantine IX Monomachus, as can be seen on this popup. The genealogy also shows the descent of Elizabeth from Harold II of England, who was killed by the Normans at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Harold's daughter Gytha, has it happens, married Vladimir Monomakh.
Pages at Wikipedia give the wife of Vsevolod and the mother of Vladimir Monomakh as an "Anastasia of Byzantium," with the gloss that her parentage with Constantine IX "is not attested in any reliable primary source." I do not see the name "Anastasia" in any of my print references, as discussed above. Also, while I am not familiar with the primary sources for these issues (and the matter does not seem to be clearly addressed in the Greek histories), I am curious what the difference would be between a "reliable primary source" and whatever other primary sources would have addressed the marriages of Vsevolod. However, if Irene/Anastasia was not the daughter of Constantine IX, my fundamental questions would then be (1) who such a person would have been to have come from Byzantium to marry the son of a Prince of Kiev, and (2) how her son would then (coincidentally?) end up with the name or epithet "Monomakh"? This would all be exceedingly curious, to say the least. What makes the most sense at this point is that Constantine IX was Vladimir II's grandfather, with the marriage of Vsevolod arranged in 1046, after the attack on Constantinople in 1043, by Yaroslav I the Wise of Kiev (1019-1054).
This Russian attack in 1043 is a matter of some interest. It may have been coincidence, opportunism, or coordination that it coincides with the revolt of George Maniaces in the same year. It was pressed forward despite the death of Maniaces from a wound and the end of his revolt. Rejecting an offer to buy off the attack, Monomachus set the Roman fleet to engage the Russians. With the help of Greek Fire, the Russian fleet was routed. This may be the last example of a decisive victory by the Roman Navy before, later in the century, the fleets of the Italian cities begin to dominate the Mediterranean and replace the Romans. The sequel of the battle is obscure, but we can speculate that the marriage of Constantine's daughter was part of the restoration of the previous good relations with the Russians. Harald Hardråde was still in the Varangian Guard in 1043, and we might even imagine him participating in the battle. King Harald's Saga, with some confusion of reigns and dates, has Harald escaping from Constatinople after kidnapping an otherwise unattested niece, Maria, of the Empress Zoë. A Viking kidnapping and carrying off a princess would not be so remarkable, but we are then told that before crossing the Black Sea, Harald dropped her off with a guard to escort her back to Constantinople. This makes me wonder. Could such a strange story reflect the circumstance that Harald himself escorted Irene/Anastasia to Kiev between 1044-1046? He arrived back in Norway to claim the throne in 1047. An escort job would thus nicely coincide with the period of his transit home. All this would dramatically tie together the events of a striking naval battle in the Bosporus (1043), the marriage of Vsevelod to a Roman princess (1046), and the fateful reign of Harald in Norway (1047-1066), 
culminating in the events (1066) that precipitate the entry of Englishmen into the Varangian Guard. I recommend this story to Hollywood, which has often featured Istanbul in its movies but never Constantinople. Nothing like Roman ships, "dromonds," 
, galleys with lateen sails, throwing flames on Viking longboats has ever been seen on film -- as I expect that Hollywood film-makers are entirely ignorant of the historical circumstances where that would have happened [note].
The marital arrangements of Constantine Monomachus have another curious feature. After two wives died, Constantine wished to marry Maria Scleraena (presumably not the same Maria Scleraena who had been married to John Tzimisces in the previous century). Third marriages, however, as we have seen, were generally forbidden by the Greek Church. So Constantine, in exile, simply lived with Maria. Recalled from exile and married to the Empress Zoë (with the third marriage rule waived), in a marriage that may have been in name only, Constantine eventually brought Maria, with Zoë's consent, right into the palace and lived with her rather openly the rest of her life (she predeceased Zoë). Zoë even granted Maria the title "Augusta." When Maria first appeared in public at the theater, Michael Psellus relates that one of the courtiers quietly said, Ou némesis, 
, "No blame" [or "It were no shame," Twelve Byzantine Emperors, Penguin, 1966, p.185]. This was a quotation from a line in the Iliad (3:156), where the Trojan elders see Helen come out on the wall and say to themselves:
"Small blame that Trojans and well-greaved Achaeans should for such a woman long time suffer woes; wondrously like is she to the immortal goddesses to look upon." [3:156-158, Loeb Classical Library, A.T. Murray translation, Harvard, 1924, 1988, p.129]
Maria was sharp enough to note the whispered comment, but she had to ask about its meaning. For us, it reveals the education of the Constantinopolitan Court, in perhaps the only city in Europe in the 11th century where Homer was going to be read and taught.
The potential for ongoing confusion over the genealogy of the Macedonians is evident in The Varangians of Byzantium by Blöndal and Benedikz [op.cit.]. Thus, they say:
In June [1043], when a large fleet under the command of Vladimir (Monomakh), son of Jaroslav, assailed the City, the Byzantines met it in the Bosphorus and defeated the combined force of Russians and Scandinavians, largely thanks to the use of Greek fire. [p.104]
This seems to confuse the eldest son of Yaroslav the Wise, Vladimir (sometimes even "II"), who died in 1052, with Vladimir II Monomakh, the grandson of Yaroslav and Constantine IX. The statement in its own terms is peculiar in the use of an epithet, "Monomakh," that echoes that of the Roman Emperor, in the name of a Russian leading an attack on that very Emperor. This is unlikely on its face -- or that someone named after the Emperor would already be old enough to have such a command (Vladimir Monomakh was born in 1053). Instead, it is more reasonable that the marriage that produces Vladimir Monomakh was the result of the peace that followed the defeat of the Russian attack. Blöndal and Benedikz do not try to explain the anomalies that their identification generates.
A very brief non-dynastic interlude concludes the period. Isaac I was the first of the Comneni and can be found on the genealogy of the Comneni below.
The Grammar of Constantinve VII's Statement
IV. FOURTH EMPIRE, LATE
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), "Sailing to Byzantium"
Romania, furthermore, is a very wide land with rugged, stony mountains. It extends south to Antioch and is bounded by Turkey on the east. All of it was formerly under Greek rule, but the Turks now possess a great part of it and, after expelling the Greeks, have destroyed another part of it. In the places where the Greeks still hold fortresses, they do not pay taxes. Such are the servile conditions in which the Greeks hold the land which French strength liberated when the Franks conquered Jerusalem.
Odo de Deuil, La Croisade de Louis VII, roi de France, Volume IV, edited by Henri Waquet, Documents relatifs à l'histoire des croisades, Volume 3, Paul Guethner, Paris, 1949, pp.54-55, translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, Marquette University Press, 1962, pp.111-112
Then followed a scene of massacre and pillage: on every hand the Greeks were cut down, their horses, palfreys, mules, and other possessions snatched as booty. So great was the number of killed and wounded that no man could count them. A great part of the Greek nobles had fled towards the gate of Blachernae; but by this time it was past six o'clock, and our men had grown weary of fighting and slaughtering. The troops began to assemble in a great square inside Constantinople. Then, convinced that it would take them at least a month to subdue the whole city, with its great churches and palaces, and the people inside it, they decided to settle down near the walls and towers they had already captured....
Our troops, all utterly worn out and weary, rested quietly that night. But the Emperor [Alexius V] Murzuphlus did not rest; instead, he assembled his forces and said he was going to attack the Franks. However, he did not do as he had announced, but rode along certain streets as far away as possible from those occupied by our army, till he came to a gate called the Golden Gate through which he escaped, and so left the city.
Geoffroy de Villehardouin (d.1218), "The Conquest of Constantinople," Chronicles of the Crusades, Penguin, 1963, p.91
"Then we must go higher. We must go to him whose office is to put down tyrants and give life to dying kingdoms. We must call on the Emperor."
"There is no Emperor."
"No Emperor..." began Merlin, and then his voice died away. He sat still for some minutes wrestling with a world which he had never envisaged."
C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 1945, Scribner, 2003, p.290
The "Fourth Empire" begins with a blow, from an Islâm reinvigorated by the Turks, which represents not only a further diminution of the Empire, but a portent of the actual collapse and end of the Empire altogether. The catastrophic defeat at Manzikert alienated much of what had for long been the heartland of the Empire, Anatolia. It was a mortal wound, never to be made good; but the Empire nevertheless twice managed to struggle back up into at least local ascendancy, first under the Comneni and then under the Palaeologi. The Comneni had help, of a very dangerous sort, in the form of the Crusaders. Defeat by the Turks was not the cruelest cut of the period. That was when the Crusaders, manipulated by Venice, took Constantinople in 1204. With the Latins, the Empire fragmented into multiple Greek and non-Greek contenders: Nicaea, Epirus, Trebizond, Bulgaria, and Serbia, not to mention the Turks. While the Palaeologi, building on the success of Nicaea, reestablished Greek rule, only Epirus of the other successor states came back under Imperial control. The Empire of Michael VIII did seem to have a chance, but a new Turkish state, of the Ottomans, soon surged into dominance. It took more than a century for the Ottomans to scoop up all the spoils, but, like a slow motion car crash, the outcome has a horrible inevitability.
A. THE ADVENT OF THE TURKS, 1059-1185, 126 years
1060 AD -- Romanian territory is intact, but the military and financial foundations of Roman power have been undermined. The coinage is debased for the first time since Constantine. Resources have been wasted absorbing Armenia, and the forces of the Armenian themes have been disbanded. Local Islamic states are no threat, but the Seljuks are on the way.
| 1. DUCASES | |
|---|---|
| Constantine X Ducas | 1059-1067 |
| Loss of Armenia, 1064 | |
| Eudocia | 1067-1071 |
| Romanus IV Diogenes | 1068-1071, d.1071 |
| Defeated and Captured by Seljuk Great Sult.ân Alp Arslan, Battle of Manzikert; Bari captured by Normans, 1071 | |
| Michael VII Parapinakes | 1071-1078 |
| Nicephorus III Botaniates | 1078-1081 |
While there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of Alp Arlsan's Islâm, his Court and that of his successor, 
Malik Shâh, under the influence of their great Vizir, Nizâm al-Mulk, displays an intellectual power and cosmopolitan expansiveness that is well represented by the mathematician, astronomer, and poet 'Umar Khayyâm (d.1122). Is the Rubaiyat cynical or merely worldly? It is hard to say. Whatever it is, one wonders to what extent some attitude of the sort can be discerned in the behavior of the Sultân. Nevertheless, it is something that passes quickly. The greatest philosopher of the era, and one of the greatest philosophers of the Middle Ages, al-Ghazâlî (1058-1111), nevertheless fiercely attacked and effectively snuffed out the tradition of Greek philosophy in the Central Islâmic lands. Thus, the damage was done to Romania, but intellectually Islâm itself was now headed into decline.
What had hitherto been the heartland of Romania in Anatolia, now became a bleeding wound to Turkish conquest, never to be recovered. Simultaneously, the Normans won, for all time, the last Roman city in Italy -- Bari. In 31 years (1040-1071), Romania had been finally expelled from Italy, 535 years after Belisarius had landed against the Ostrogoths. The Ducas genealogy is given both here and below with the Comneni. They were the first Roman dynasty with a surname, which shows some of the social changes that took place during the long period of the Macedonians. The marriages of Constantine, the son of Michael VII, and his second wife, Anna Comnena, are of particular interest. The intermarriage of the Ducases with the Normans of Italy might have made for some political differences -- had the young bride, Helen, lived.
By about the time of Manzikert, there were interesting new recruits to the Varangian Guard. Where Harald Hardråde had failed to conquer England in 1066, William the Conqueror, within days of the Norwegian defeat, would succeed at Hastings. The Norman Conquest spelled the dispossession of the native Saxon nobility, who then began to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Many of them consequently were drawn to the Varangian Guard. Having lost England to Normans/Vikings, Englishmen served the Empire that had withstood them. They would continue to do so for more than three centuries -- the first reference to Englishmen in the service of Romania was in 1080, the last in 1404 -- 324 years. 
Indeed, now we see references that 4350 English emigrants in 235 ships arrived at Constantinople in 1075 [Chronicon universale anonymi Laudunensis], or that the English arrived in 350 ships and were in part settled in a Nova Anglia, a "New England" far from Plymouth Rock [according to the Icelandic Jarvardar Saga].
According to Geoffroy de Villehardouin, there were still "Englishmen and Danes" defending Constantinople when the Fourth Crusade arrived in 1203. After the Greek recovery of the City by the Palaeologi in 1261, we have some indication that the surviving Varangian Guard may have been entirely English. In 1272 Michael VIII Palaeologus wrote a letter mentioning the Englishmen in his service, now called the 
, Egklinováraggoi (sing. 
, Egklinováraggos -- Enklinobarangi in Latin, sing. Enklinobarangus) [cf. Sigfús Blöndal and Benedikt S. Benedikz, op.cit., p.172]. Like the Norsemen, the English Varangians seem to have had their own church in Constantinople, dedicated to Saints Nicholas and Augustine of Canterbury (the Apostle to the English). Under subsequent Palaeologi, however, they fade from history.
One might wonder, however, why go all the way to Constantinople? Was the Varangian Guard really that big a deal? Well, part of the problem for a sort of European Ronin (masterless warrior in a feudal system) is that, in the absence of cash economies, nobody was hiring mercenaries. If Englishmen wanted to be hired to fight after 1066, they needed to go to where there was a paid, professional military. In Christian Europe, that was still only in Constantinople -- still only the Tagmata. A noteworthy exception to this was in the South of Italy, where a cash economy existed, mainly because of its inclusion in the economic sphere of Romania. Cities like Naples had conducted trade with Constantinople both during their time as Roman possessions, after being recovered from the Ostrogoths, and then as they slowly drifted out of the control of Constantinople. They also conducted trade with Islâmic states, especially after the Aghlabids had conquered Sicily. This often scandalized other Christians. But it was even worse when they began to hire Muslim mercenaries. An Englishman, of course, might belong to the Varangian Guard but be fighting in Southern Italy nevertheless. There they would have met other mercenaries with whom they were not likely to have friendly relations: Normans who had come from Normandy looking for their own fortunes. The Norman mercenaries in Roman service had gone over to local rebels in 1040. When the English arrived, they found themselves actively fighting kinsmen of their old enemies, in Italy, Epirus, and Greece. These Normans were able to expel the Romans from Italy, recover Sicily from Islam, and then create a united Kingdom of Naples and Sicily. This resulted in the economic decline of the South Italian commercial cities. As the trade they had pioneered moved North, other Italian cities became wealthy enough to hire their own mercenaries. These become the famous mercenary Condottiere of the Renaissance.
According to a recently released book, The Varangian Guard, 988-1453, by Raffaele D'Amato [Men-at-Arms, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, UK, & Long Island City, NY, 2010]:
...in Dobroudja [on the Black Sea], a short-lived Anglo-Saxon settlement called by the Varangians 'Nova Anglia' was created at the end of the 11th century... The chronicler Ordericus Vitalis recorded that 'the English were much distressed by their loss of liberty... A number of them, with the fresh bloom of youth upon them, went to distant lands.' [p.13]
D'Amato says that one of the English exiles in Romania was "the pretender Edward Atheling" [p.13]. I do not know who this would be. There does not seem to be such a person as listed in the genealogies of either the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume II, Part 1, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs- und Fürstenhäuser I Westeuropa [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Third Edition, 2001, p.264] or the The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens [Mike Ashley, Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., New York, 1998, 1999, p.468, 491-498]. We find "Edward the Exile" and "Edgar the Atheling", but no "Edward Atheling." Edward the Exile was sent into exile, hopefully to his death, by Canute. He didn't die and did spend time at the Hungarian Court (where he married the daughter, Agathe, of King St. Stephen I). Recalled by Edward the Confessor, he was murdered, perhaps by partisans of Harold Godwinsson, and then his young son Edgar was made Heir Apparent. That was in 1057, so Edward could not have gone into exile after 1066. Too young to rule, Edgar was pushed aside by Harold in 1066. After Harold's death, Edgar was proclaimed King but then in short order surrendered to William. Edgar is the best candidate for exile in Romania, but that does not seem to be what happened. He was the obvious Pretender to the English Throne and spent many years at the Scottish Court (where King Malcolm married Edgar's sister Margaret) and elsewhere, stirring up trouble for the Normans. Eventually, he was pardoned by King Henry I and spent his remaining years, in increasing obscurity, on an English estate. However, according to the Mammoth Book [p.498], Edgar did go on Crusade in 1099. This may have involved some contact with Romania and so may be the source for D'Amato's (confused) reference.
The long history of the English Varangians, as with the original and continuing Norse Varangians, accompanies the long decline of Romania. As declines go, 400 years is not what anyone would think of as abrupt or precipitous, but it was continuing and unreversed. The Varangian role has its melancholy aspect, as the Scandinavians and English are unable to prevent that decline, and as local Roman sources of wealth and manpower obviously undergo progressive decay in effectiveness. But there also is an aspect to it of great romance and nobility. In the last centuries of the Roman Empire, essential help came through the interest and devotion of individual foreign warriors, both from the most distant of old Roman possessions, Britain, and from peoples and lands, in the North, that had really been off the map and beyond the knowledge of Augustus, Trajan, or even Justinian. It is the sort of thing for which there really should be some small monuments in London, Oslo, Stockholm, or Copenhagen, in tribute to their countrymen who took the long trip to fight in the defense of Constantinople, over so many years. Yet, with the history of participation in the Varangian Guard largely forgotten, and the whole existence and history of "Byzantium" so generally ignored or despised, it is not clear who would have the interest to build such monuments and to commemorate such measures of devotion to the last Emperors in successon to Augustus and Constantine, and to what for long was still the greatest City of Christendom. It is a pity.
As noted above, before the time of the English Varangians, relations of their Norman conquerors had themselves briefly served the Emperor Michael IV. Two of the original 
de Hauteville brothers from Normandy were in a group of 300 Normans under George Maniaces in Italy in 1037-1038. The eldest de Hauteville brother, William, earns his sobriquet "Iron Arm" by defeating the Amir of Syracuse in single combat in 1037. The disaffection and defection of the Normans, and their transformation of one of the Lombard revolts (1040), such as Romania had previously been able to defeat, would then drive Romania out of Italy by 1071, spelling the final alienation of Italy, retrieved by Belisarius in 536, from Constantinople (after 535 years) -- but then it also led to the recovery of Sicily from Islam (1061-1091), specifically from the Zirid Amirs of Tunisia, and the reunion of all Southern Italy into one Kingdom (1130). This brought the South of Italy into the history of Francia for the first time -- in the 13th century, under the German Emperor Frederick II, it could even be said to briefly be the center of that history, as Frederick made Palermo his capital.
Catastrophe. The heartland of the Empire in Anatolia is completely overrun. Italy is lost to the Normans, forever. Only the Balkan European possessions, secured not long before, enable Romania to endure and recover, somewhat -- with the dangerous help of the Crusaders. Armenians, recently settled in Cilicia, are surrounded, although this will be the origin of the Kingdom of Lesser Armenia that will endure until 1375. The triumphant Normans meanwhile have invaded Sicily, which they will permanently recover from Islam.
| 2. SELJUK SULT.ÂNS OF RÛM | |
|---|---|
| Süleyman I ibn Qutalmïsh | 1078-1086 |
| Kilij (Qïlïch) Arslan I | 1092-1107 |
| Malik Shâh | 1107-1116 |
| Mas'ûd I Rukn ad-Dîn | 1116-1156 |
| Kilij Arlsan II | 1156-1192 |
| Myriocephalon, 1176; Konya sacked by Frederick Barbarossa on the Third Crusade, 1190 | |
| Kay Khusraw (Khosru) I | 1192-1196, 1205-1211 |
| killed in battle by Theodore Lascaris, 1211 | |
| Süleyman II | 1196-1204 |
| Kilij Arlsan III 'Izz ad-Dîn | 1204-1205 |
| Kay Kâwûs I | 1211-1220 |
| Kay Qubâdh I 'Alâ' ad-Dîn | 1220-1237 |
| Kay Khusraw II Ghiyâth ad-Dîn | 1237-1246, 1257-1959 |
| Defeated by Mongols, Battle of Köse Dagh, becomes vassal, 1243 | |
| Kay Kâwûs II | 1246-1257 |
| Kilij Arslan IV | 1248-1265 |
| Kay Qûbâdh II | 1249-1257 |
| Kay Khosru III Ghiyâth ad-Dîn | 1265-1282 |
| Control by Mongol Governors, 1277 | |
| Mas'ûd II | 1282-1284, 1284-1293, 1294-1301, 1303-1307 |
| Kay Qûbâdh III | 1284, 1293-1294, 1301-1303 |
| Mas'ûd III | 1307 |
| Deposed by Mongols, 1307 | |
virtually in rebellion against, the Seljuk Great Sult.ân Malik Shâh (1073-1092), who was even negotiating with Alexius Comnenus for the withdrawal of the Turks from the region and whose troops actually killed Süleyman I. However, even the Great Sult.ân was in no position to force such a withdrawal, and Roman resistance was so weak that Süleyman had no difficulty establishing his capital at Nicaea. The best that Alexius could do was to keep him back from Nicomedia. Meanwhile, even western cities like Ephesus were falling. The Sult.âns then styled themselves the rulers of Rûm, i.e. "Romania."
The Turkish position was secure until defeat by the First Crusade in 1097. Then Alexius was able to recover the western cities. The Turks fell back on Iconium (Konya), which became their capital for the rest of the history of the Sultanate of Rûm. Although sacked by Frederick Barbarosa on the Third Crusade (1190), Konya was lost forever to Romania. The Sultanate already, however, seemed to have lost its edge. The devastating defeat of Manuel Comnenus at Myriocephalum (1176) was not followed up, and the subsequent decline of Romania was mainly from internal weakening and fragmentation (readying it for the Fourth Crusade). The Sultanate was then defeated by the Mongols in 1243 and spent the rest of its history in vassalage. The final fall, in 1307, coincided with a very fragmented, but vigorous, period of new Turkish states -- the Oghullar or "sons" of Rûm.
This list is from Clifford Edmund Bosworth's The New Islamic Dynasties [Edinburgh University Press, 1996].
A curious feature of the relationship of Constantinople to the Sult.âns of Rûm was its often cordial and almost friendly tone. Alexius Comnenus employed Turkish mercenaries and once, when he happened to capture the harîm of the Sult.ân, he promptly returned the women with his apologies. To the Crusaders, these dealings with the Infidel were surest proof of Greek duplicity and treachery. What was going on, however, is illuminated by a comment of Kenneth W. Harl [in his video lectures, The World of Byzantium, for The Teaching Company, 2001] and by the description of Byzantine strategy and diplomacy in The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, by Edward N. Luttwak [Belknap, Harvard University Press, 2009]. Harl's comment was that Alexius saw the Turks as a new Bulgaria, which could be Christianized, domesticated, and then absorbed into the Empire, just as Bulgaria had been. This is consistent with the strategy described by Luttwak, one of whose key points was that the Empire did not aim at the extermination of its enemies, as the Rome of Trajan might have done. This was (1) too difficult and exhausting given the reduced power of Romania, (2) dangeorus when a battle could be lost as well as won, with hell to pay, and (3) futile when the elimination of one enemy would simply open the door for the next enemy in the queue, who is liable to be more aggressive and more alien than the previous one.
Thus, while Anatolia had not been overrun in quite the same way before, the Balkans had. Over centuries, the inundation of the Slavs, Avars, and Bulgars had gradually been overcome and absorbed, with decisive military action only at the end. Premature attempts in that form, as in the days of Nicephorus I, had been disasters. And there was nothing new about the Turks. Romania had found good allies in the Turkish Khazars for three centuries, and we have seen Emperors marry Khazar women. Alexius knew that the Empire was in a bad way, but that had happened before. All it would take was patience.
And Alexius would have some reason for hope. There had been Turkish converts to Christianity, even groups of them, who had come over to the Empire. After the First Crusade had driven the Seljuks back from their high water mark, the borders began to settle and they did not seem to pose the same kind of threat. Diplomacy and familiarity could begin to work their magic. Unfortunately, there were some features of the situation that told against the traditional strategy. The Turks were, indeed, recent converts to Islâm, but nevertheless this already gave them the sort of sophisticated religious system that the Slavs and Bulgars had not possessed. Christianity did not represent sophistication and civilization in comparison to Islâm as it had to the others. Also, religious influence continued to arrive from the central Islâmic lands, while Christian proslytizing was not tolerated.
Roman and Christian culture thus had less of a chance of domesticating the Turkish threat. Most importantly, there were subsequent waves of Turkish immigration, reinvigorating the Turkish presence. The Mongols were bumping more Turks off the steppe just as the Huns had originally bumped inconvenient numbers of Germans into the Empire centuries earlier. But the Turks were both too strong and too weak. The Seljuks of Rûm were complacent enough that they took no real advantage of Manuel's defeat at Myriocelphum (a premature Roman push), but then they were staggered and subjugated by the Mongol defeat in 1243. This meant that the new waves of arriving Turks ended up creating new, vigorous states, the Oghullar, with whom domestication would need to start all over again, instead of being absorbed into a durable and familiar state of Rûm. Figures like John Cantacuzenus did try to start over again, even intermarrying with the Ottomans, but by then the situation of the Empire was so diminished (with the Bulgars, Vlachs, and Serbs going their own way), and that of the Turks so enhanced (still driven by undiminished Islâmic Jihâd), that there was little chance left for things to go over time as they had with the Bulgars. Instead, it was the Turks who tamed and absorbed Romania.
| 3. COMNENI | |
|---|---|
| Alexius I Comnenus | 1081-1118 |
| called Kirjalax in Icelandic; trade concession to Venice, 1082; appeal to Robert II of Flanders (?) & Pope Urban II, 1095; First Crusade, 1096-1099; entertains Eric I of Denmark, who addresses Danish Varangians, 1103; Statue of Constantine falls from Porphyry Column in the Forum of Constantine during storm, 1106 | |
| John II | 1118-1143 |
| captures Leon I of Armenia, 1137 | |
| Manuel I | 1143-1180 |
| Second Crusade, 1147-1149; homage of Thoros II of Armenia, Reynald of Antioch, & Baldwin III of Jerusalem, 1158-1159; enters Antioch, 1159; secures Dalmatia, Croatia, & Bosnia, 1167; all Venetians arrested in Romania, 1171; Myriocephalum, defeat by Kilij Arlsan II, 1176 | |
| Alexius II | 1180-1183 |
| Serbia independent, 1180; Bela III takes Dalmatia, Bosnia, & Sirmium | |
| Andronicus I | 1183-1185 |
| Isaac Comnenus | Emperor on Cyprus, 1185-1191 |
It is usually said that Alexius wrote a letter to the Pope asking for aid and that this inspired Urban to call for the Crusade. Alexius is also said to have written a letter to Count Robert II of Flanders, whose father, Robert I, had recently (1089) been on pilgrmage to Jerusalem and evidently developed a relationship with Alexius on the way. The received text of the letter to Robert is suspicious, and it may be that an embassy from Alexius, more than a simple letter, dealt with both the Pope and Robert. As it happened, Alexius developed a better relationship with Robert II than with most of the Crusaders on the First Crusade and, as the Count passed through Constantinople on the way home from Jerusalem, bestowed on him a relic that was supposed to be an arm of St. George. This special relationship between Constantinople and Flanders foreshadows, sadly, the later election of Count Baldwin IX as Latin Emperor after the Fourth Crusade takes the City in 1204 -- "sadly" because the friendship with Alexius was replaced by the hostile conquest of his descendants, the Angeli.
Most of the Crusaders passing through Constantinople gave Alexius a very bad feeling. The possibility of what actually happened a century later, when the Fourth Crusade took Constantinople, was already very real. So Alexius bundled them as quickly as possible into Asia, where they defeated the Turks, making it possible to drive them out of western Anatolia together. This was of great material help to Romania, but the Turks remained based at Iconium (Konya). The Roman Army (with the thematic apparatus long gone) was never up to the task of dislodging them entirely. That this could have been done was revealed when Frederick Barbarosa, passing through on the Third Crusade, broke into Konya and sacked it (1190). That he died shortly thereafter steals the thunder from this act, but it is noteworthy. Meanwhile, the greatest military successes of the Comneni, by Manuel I, when his suzerainty was acknowledged by Lesser Armenia, Antioch, and even Jerusalem, were undone by a devastating defeat in 1176 at Myriocephalum ("Ten Thousands Heads"). Shortly thereafter Serbia breaks away, beginning a process of disintegration that would never be entirely reversed.
The Englishmen in the Varangian Guard of Alexius I were not entirely able to escape their Norman nemesis. At the battle of Dyrrhachium in 1082, where Normans from Sicily under Robert Guisgard de Hauteville were trying to establish a beachhead in what is now Albania, a promising start turned into a rout of the Roman army, with many of the English Varangians, who had advanced impetuously beyond the rest of the army, slaughtered by the Normans. Nevertheless, despite this painful setback, and some others, Alexius finally was able to win the war and, with the help of the Venetians and even Seljuks, eject the Normans. The death of Guisgard in 1085 ended the threat, as the Normans otherwise concentrated on recovering Sicily from Islam -- though there was no love lost when Guisgard's son Bohemond passed through Constantinople on the First Crusade (he then became the first Prince of Antioch, violating an agreement to return the city to Romania).
According to Raffaele D'Amato [op.cit., p.10], after the defeat of Manuel I at Myriocephalum in 1176 and considerable losses there to the Varangians, some English Varangians went home with a letter from the Emperor to King Henry II of England, saying, "We have also felt it a pleasure that it so happened that some of the chief men of your nobility were with us, who will, at your desire, inform you on all the circumstances [of the battle]." One thing this record demonstrates is that English recruits to the Guard were no longer merely dispossessed Saxons. Some "chief men" of Henry's own Norman nobility were drawn to the Guard. This is why the tradition went on for centuries, long after 1066.
Norse recruits to the Varangian Guard continued as Alexius entertained Scandinavian monarchs on Crusade or pilgrimage, particularly the Kings Eric I the Evergood of Denmark and Sigurð I the Crusader of Norway. Alexius at first distrusted Eric, as he did all the Crusaders, and had him camp outside Constantinople. We are told, however, that his spies reported Eric urging the Danish Varangians to serve the Emperor faithfully. Eric was then invited into the City and honored -- at least according to the Norse sources. Unfortunately, the pious King never made it to Jerusalem but died and was buried on Cyprus. Alexius is remembered in the Icelandic Sagas as Kirjalax, evidently from Kyrios Alexios, "Lord Alexius." The name was also used, confusingly, for subsequent Comneni.
In Manuel I's day, in 1153, we also get recruits to the Guard from the Crusading force of the Earl of Orkney. Raffaele D'Amato says [op.cit. p.14] that the Earl, coming by sea, had six of his 15 ships split off at Gibraltar and go to Constantinople. D'Amato does not say which Earl of Orkney this was. That is a problem, since there were two Earls, cousins Ragnald III (1137-1158) and Harald II the Old (1139-1206), ruling simultaneously. I suspect that the Earl in question was Ragnald III, since we find Ragnald's more closely related cousin, Erlend III, becoming Earl in 1154 (1154-1156). This looks like something that would happen while Ragnald was away on Crusade.
This speculation is confirmed by The Mammoth Book of British Kings & Queen [op.cit., pp.453-455], where Erlend III took advantage of Ragnald III's absence on Crusade to usurp his domain, with the permission of King Eystein III of Norway (the suzerain of Orkney at the time). Harald II withstood this move, but when Eystein III bestowed the entire County on Erlend, because Harald had been appointed by Ragnald without Royal permission, Erlend was able to eject Harald. Ragnald then returned from Crusade in 1155; and he and Harald combined forces to defeat and kill Erlend. The Mammoth Book does not mention any of Ragnald's men joining the Varangian Guard; but it does say that, returning from Palestine, Ragnald wintered in Constantinople, visiting the Emperor Manuel. If D'Amato is right, that six of Ragnald's ships left at Gibraltar to join the Guard, it does not sound like there would have been much hard feeling, for the Earl to be a guest of Manuel later on.
Anna Comnena (1083–1153), daughter of Alexius I, wrote a history of her father's reign, the Alexiad. Most of it was written after she was banished to a convent by her brother, John II, whom she apparently had tried to assassinate. This particularly intense form of sibling rivalry was in part the result of Anna's expectation that she would be closer to the seat of power, i.e. that the Emperor would be her husband. The birth of John spoiled this, and Anna, perhaps a feminist before her time, never accepted the wisdom of his succession. She blamed him for subsequent disasters; but, since the Alexiad doesn't cover his reign, she never quite says what they were. The real disaster, Myriocephalum, happened after her death to her nephew, Manuel I. One reference to the Alexiad that I remember from childhood, that Anna says her father didn't trust the Crusaders because they didn't have beards and smelled of horses, I have been unable to find in the text. I was long under the impression that the Alexiad made Anna the first woman historian. She certainly has that honor in the West. However, I now discover that there was an earlier woman historian in China. Pan Chao completed the great History of the Former Han Dynasty after her brother, Pan Ku, was executed, leaving the work incomplete. This was during the Later Han Dynasty, a thousand years before Anna. Since Pan Chao's other brother, Pan Ch'ao, commissioned an embassy to Rome in 97 AD, unfortunately unsuccessful, we do have a tenuous historial link between the two women.
From the few and questionable foreign marriages of the Macedonians, with the Comneni we find a large number of well attested ones, many with Crusaders but one making connections as distant as Spain. I was aware of few of these until a correspondent, Ann Ferland, began to point them out. The marriage of Maria of Montpellier, whose mother was Eudocia Comnena, to King Peter II of Aragon led to all subsequent Kings of Aragon and of Spain. A great deal of European Royalty, right down to the present, thus would be descendants of Alexius I Comnenus.
The presence of the Venetians and the web of foreign marriages both attest to closer ties and increasing traffic, and not just of Crusaders, between Constantinople and the West. For instance, the Emperor Manuel (1143-1180) made a gift of a copy of Ptolemy's Almagest to King William I (1154-1166) of Naples and Sicily. This apparently was conveyed on a diplomatic mission by Henricus Aristippus (d.c.1162), who saw to the translation of the work, while he himself tried his hand at translating the Meno and Phaedo. The manuscript of the Almagest was inherited by Charles of Anjou, who then donated his library to the Papacy in 1266. It subsequently ended up in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice. While interest in Greek and in doing translations may not be too surprising in the South of Italy, we see the first signs of it further north. Thus, James of Venice (c.1130/70) and Burgundio of Pisa (c.1110-1193) acquired manuscripts, traveled to Constantinople, and began turning out translations. This is still 300 years before the Renaissance proper, when such activities went into high gear, with much greater interest, Greek refugees, and the aid of the printing press. People like Burgundio and their pioneering efforts thus tend to be forgotten, but the later work probably owes them a debt that is now hard to estimate.
| 4. LESSER ARMENIA | |
|---|---|
| Ruben I | 1080-1095 |
| Constantine I | 1095-? |
| Prince, 1099; King? | |
| First Crusade, 1096-1099 | |
| Theodore/Thoros I | |
| Leon I | c.1129-1137 |
| captured by John II, 1137; dies in Constantinople | |
| Thoros II | escaped, 1145; 1148-1168 |
| homage to Manuel I, 1158 | |
| Ruben II | 1168-1175 |
| Ruben III | 1175-1185 |
| Leon/Levon II the Great | Prince, 1185-1198 |
| King, 1198-1219 | |
| Isabella/Zabel | 1219-1269 |
| Constantine | regent, 1219-1205 |
| Philip of Antioch | 1205-? |
| son of Behemond IV of Antioch | |
| Hethoum I the Great | 1226-1269 |
| Leon III | 1270-1289 |
| Hethoum II the One-Eyed | 1289-1305 |
| Thoros III | |
| Leon IV of Cyprus | 1305-1307 |
| Sempad & Constantine II | |
| Oshin | 1307-1320 |
| Leon V | 1320-1342 |
| Constantine III, Lord of Neghir | |
| Guy Lusignan | 1342-1344 |
| son of Amalric of Tyre, King of Cyprus | |
| Constantine IV | 1344-1363 |
| Constantine V | 1363-1373 |
| Leon VI | 1373-1375, d. 1393 |
| Kingdom falls to Mamlûks, 1375 | |
After Nicephorus II Phocas recovered the area from the Arabs in 965 and ordered all Moslems to leave, Christians from Syria and Armenia were encouraged to settle and garrison the land. Nicephorus himself even welcomed "schismatic," Armenian Orthodox Monophysites from Armenia, but this tolerance would not always continue and some friction was inevitable between many Armenians and the Imperial (the, strictly speaking, "Roman Catholic") Church. After the Seljuk breakthrough, more Armenians must have fled from the east as the Turks overran Anatolia. The Armenians in the Taurus found themselves on their own and began organizing their own domains. When the Crusaders passed through, they were welcomed and aided. A daughter of Constantine I was married to Joscelin I, Count of Edessa, ushering in a long history of association and intermarriage between the Armenians and the Crusader states. This made Lesser Armenia rather like a Crusader State itself, and so it is shown on the map.
As such, the history of Lesser Armenia puts to shame the antipathy in "liberal" opinion against the Crusades. The Armenians, surrounded and repeatedly attacked (until today) by militant Islâm, expose the hypocrisy of the anachronistic and tendentious characterization, by naive fools or vicious Lefists, of the Crusades as "imperialism," while Islamic Conquest, whether in the 7th century, the 11th, the 15th, or any other time, is itself ignored, rationalized, or excused. This is a living and crucial issue in our own day of Islamic Terrorism, when the Left has in effect joined forces with Mediaeval savagery in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, or Gaza -- in the Marxist cause of attacking capitalism and liberal democracy. Christians are under renewed attack in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Egypt; but the "liberal" press, which never worries much about the murder of Christians or Jews by Muslims, continues to ignore such developments.
This list of kings is mainly based on M. Chahin, The Kingdom of Armenia [Dorset Press, New York, 1987, 1991]. However, Steven Runciman, in his A History of the Crusades, Volume III, The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades [Cambridge, 1951, 1987], gives a more complete family tree, abstracted below. Runciman, maddeningly (but characteristically), gives not a single date; but he does give a number of figures who account for the numbering of the Constantines and Thoroses in the dynasty. According to Chahin's list, these were not reigning kings, but, even if not, they were numbered as members of the dynasty. Or they may have been co-regents unrecognized by Chahin. On the other hand, Constantine IV and V are not listed by Runciman in the dynastic tree because they were both usurpers. "Peter of Cyprus" listed by Chahin is Peter I of Cyprus. Constantine V offered him the throne but then decided to keep it for himself when Peter was assassinated. This information is supplemented by Warren Threadgold's A History of the Byzantine State and Society [Stanford, 1997]. Chahin fails to mention, for instance, the capture of Leon I and his sons (including Thoros II) by the Emperor John II Comnenus. On the other hand, while Runciman and Chahin agree that the early Rupenids were "princes," without a royal title until 1198, Threadgold says that they began calling themselves "kings" in 1099. Since none of them give the actual terms they were using, perhaps just in Armenian, it is hard to know why there is this disagreement.
Of greatest interest in the genealogy is when the house of Lesser Armenia makes reciprocal marriages with the Lusignan dynasty of Cyprus. This begins with the children of Leon III and Hugh III of Cyprus. Two sons and three daughters of Leon III married children of Hugh III. The result is that the succession of Lesser Armenia actually passes to to Lusignan. Such a close connection might have protected the Armenians, if Cyprus had been enough of a power to resist the Mamlûks, which, at least on land, it was not.
The Kingdom of Lesser Armenia was the last independent Armenian state until the former Soviet Republic of Armenia became independent in 1991.
As Armenians had relocated to Cilicia, so did the Patriarch of Armenia (in 1062). This line continued even after the fall of the Kingdom in 1375. In 1441, however, a new Patriarch was elected in Armenia. The Cilician line continued, as it does down to the present, as the Great House of Cilicia. It relocated to Lebanon in 1930 because of continued attacks on Armenians in Turkey.
The Empire has recovered as much as it is ever going to, and actually seems in relatively good shape, with deference all the way from Jerusalem to Hungary. But the heartland of the Themes is long gone. The Sultânate of Rûm is a nut that cannot be cracked -- the true seed of doom for Romania. And Roman trade and shipping is now dominated by Venice, just one of the states of Francia that now rivals or surpasses Romania in economic development. What had always been the key to Roman success, control of the sea, which had previously been lost at times to the Vandals and the Arabs, now is lost forever to Italian states.
B. THE LATIN EMPIRE, 1185-1261, 76 years
| 1. ANGELI | |
|---|---|
| Isaac II Angelus | 1185-1195 |
| Bulgaria independent, 1186 Third Crusade, 1189-1192; Cyprus seized from Isaac Comnenus by Richard the Lionheart, given to Guy of Lusignan, 1191 | |
| Alexius III | 1195-1203, d.c.1211 |
| Kingdom of Lesser Armenia independent, 1198-1375; massive earthquake in Syria, 20 May 1202; Fourth Crusade, 1202-1204 | |
| Isaac II (restored) | 1203-1204 |
| Alexius IV | 1203-1204 |
| Alexius V Mourtzouphlos | 1204, d.1204 |
| Constantinope falls to Fourth Crusade, 1204 | |
As on the eve of the advent of the Goths in the 4th century, a massive earthquake affected the region in 1202 on the eve of the Fourth Crusade. This was centered in Galilee and the damage was principally inflicted through Syria and Palestine, which would only indirectly have affected Romania. However, the earthquake was so large (perhaps a 7.6 or greater) that Anatolia was also affected, while the effects of a tsunami could have extended into the Aegean. It is thus difficult to say how this might have damaged the strength of Romania when faced with the arrival of the Crusaders. Of course, one might think that damage to the resources of the Islamic states in the Levant would have made this an idea moment for the Crusaders to arrive there, but the Venetian plan against Constantinople had already seized the agency of the Crusade.
In 1195, Isaac II, or the new Emperor Alexius III, sent three Varangians on a mission to Scandinavia to seek recruits for the Varangian Guard -- this is revealing when previously Danish and Norwegian monarchs had themselves come to Constantinople. We are told that Hreiðarr sendimaðr (i.e. "the Messenger") went to Norway (to King Sverre), Pétr illska went to Denmark (to King Canute VI the Pious), and Sigurðr grikker ("the Greek") Oddsson went to Sweden (to Knut I or Sverker II). Hreiðarr had the toughest time that we know of, since Sverre, anticipating war, had no warriors to spare. Allowed to recruit among farmers and merchants, it is not clear that Hreiðarr, who became embroiled in local events, ever returned to Constantinople. On the other hand, Pétr may have returned with the actual Danes who were subsequently observed by Geoffroy de Villehardouin in 1203. There are many stories about Sigurðr Oddsson, but it is not clear whether his mission was successful. Since there are references to Englishmen but not to Scandinavians in the Varangian Guard of the Palaeologi, this may be last the time when Norse warriors actively traveled to Constantinople [cf. Blöndal and Benedikz, op.cit., pp.218-222].
Alexius III, having fled the Crusaders who installed Alexius IV and restored Isaac II, takes up residence at Mosynopolis in Thrace. Alexius V Mourtzouphlos, part of the popular reaction again the Crusaders and their friends, Alexius IV and Isaac II, conducted the last defense of the City but then fled. He sought refuge with Alexius III, who was, after all, is father-in-law, but who, however, had him blinded and expelled. Captured by some French Knights and returned to Constantinople, Mourtzouphlos was thrown to his death from the Column of Theodosius. Alexius III ultimately tries to get the Turks to defeat the Lascarids and install him at Nicaea. Unfortunately, Theodore Lascaris personally killed the Sultân of Rûm in single combat. Alexius is captured, blinded, and sent to a monastery. He dies, forgotten, some time after 1211.
The Angeli continue the foreign marriages of the Comneni. One is particularly noteworthy. Irene Angelina, daughter of the Isaac II, married a son of Frederick Barbarossa, Philip of Swabia, who contended with Otto of Brunswick for the German Empire. They had no sons; but the marriages of their four daughters are among the most interesting in European history. In a reconciliation 
of Philip's feud, the oldest daughter, Beatrice, married Otto himself. But they had no children. The younger daughters, Kunigunde, Marie, and Elizabeth, married King Wenceslas I of Bohemia, Duke Henry III of Lower Lorraine and Brabant, and King & St. Ferdinand III of Castile and Leon, respectively. All of these marriages produced children with living modern descendants, especially among the Hapsburgs and the royal family of Spain, as can be traced at the linked genealogies. Since Isaac himself was a great-grandson of Alexius I Comnenus, this means that a large part of modern European royalty, through this connection alone, have been descendants of the Angeli and Comneni. My impression is that Roman Imperial descent for recent royalty has often been claimed through the Macedonians, but the only certain line, as we have seen, may be from Macedonian in-laws. On the other hand, descent from the Comneni and Angeli appears to be well attested and with multiple lines. Another fruitful line will be from Maria Lascarina, who married Bela IV of Hungary. Since the Lascarids themselves derive from Anna Angelina, Maria's mother, that connects up to the whole Comneni-Angeli house. Maria's son, Stephen V of Hungary, had a daughter, Katalin, who married the Serbian King Stephen Dragutin, who had a daughter the married a Bosnian Ban, with many descendants. This line all the way to the Hapsburgs can be examined on a popup.
| 2. BULGARIA, ASENS | |
|---|---|
| John I Asen | 1186-1196 |
| Peter II Asen | 1196-1197 |
| Kalojan Asen, the Roman Killer | 1197-1207 |
| captures Baldwin I, 1205; kills Boniface of Montferrat, 1207 | |
| Boril | 1207-1218 |
| John II Asen | 1218-1241 |
| Defeated & Captured Theodore Ducas of Epirus, 1230; Mongol invasion, 1242 | |
| Kaloman I | 1242-1246 |
| Michael II Asen | 1246-1257 |
| Kaloman II | 1257-1258 |
| Constantine Tich | 1257-1277 |
| Ivan Mytzes | 1278-c.1264 |
| Ivalio | 1277-1279, d.1280 |
| John III Asen | 1279-1284?, d.<1302 |
| Asens replaced by Terters | |
Indeed, the Asen brothers, founders of the dynasty, were themselves Vlachs, i.e. modern Romanians. This is therefore not a purely ethnic Bulgarian state. It also came close to succeeding to the throne in Constantinople, though later overpowered by the Mongols, Serbia and, of course, the Ottomans.
The principal setback to the Bulgarian state was the Mongol invasion of 1242, which itself was almost an afterthought as the Mongols abandoned the conquests of Poland and Hungary in 1241 and were returning to Russia. The Chingnizids needed to go to Mongolia to elect a new Great Khan. What followed for Bulgaria was a period of internal conflict, between members of the Asen dynasty and outsiders. Two unrelated usurpers, Constantine Tich and Ivaljo, figure in the table above. Another unrelated figure, however, Ivan Mytzes, becomes an Asen in-law and the father of the last Asen Emperor, John III. This is a confused period, with pretenders contending and dates uncertain. John III fled to the Mongols and then to Constantinople. He was succeeded in Bulgaria by his erstwhile minister, George Terter.
The list of Bulgarian rulers is from various Byzantine sources, including the only source of the genealogy here, which is the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume II, Part 2, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs- und Fürstenhäuser II Nord-, Ost- und Südeuropa [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Part 2, Second Edition, 1997, pp.160-162].
Although John III lost Bulgaria, his descendants figured in affairs in Constantinople for some time. Since his granddaughter married the Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus, whose daughter Helena married the Emperor John V, all the subsequent Palaeologi are his descendants.
| 3. LATIN EMPERORS AT CONSTANTINOPLE | |
|---|---|
| Baldwin I of Flanders | 1204-1205 |
| Captured by Kalojan Asen, 1205 | |
| Henry of Flanders | 1206-1216 |
| Peter de Courtenay | 1217 |
| Yolanda of Flanders | 1217-1219 |
| Robert I de Courtenay | 1221-1228 |
| John of Brienne | 1228-1237 |
| Baldwin II | 1228-1261 |
| titular Emperor 1261-1273 | |
| Philip II | titular Emperor 1273-1285 |
| Catherine de Courtenay | titular Empress 1285-1307 |
| Charles of Valois | titular Emperor 1301-1313 |
| Catherine of Valois | titular Empress 1313-1346 |
| Philip II of Tarento | titular Emperor 1313-1331 |
| Robert II | titular Emperor 1346-1364 |
| Philip III | titular Emperor 1364-1373 |
Western Europe against the Greek and Orthodox East, one thing must be admitted: This was not what the Crusaders had in mind. It wasn't their idea or their intention. The whole project had been cooked up by Venice and conducted from beginning to end by the Doge Enrico Dandolo. The betrayal it represents, then, was of a more intimate character, since Venice was in origin, culture, and tradition one of Romania's own. In the most attenuated sense, it was still a de jure possession of Constantinople. The Crusaders, who thought that getting to Outremer by sea would be easier than marching overland, did not reckon on the scale of demands for payment by Venice, or on the cynical manipulations that would follow. Pope Innocent III wasn't too happy about it either, and the Crusaders earned excommunication for fighting Christians, for Venice, rather than Moslems, for Christendom. However they got to Constantinople, of course, they still didn't need to sack the City. We can blame them for that. In the end, of course, the blame doesn't matter. The damage was done. There would be hell to pay, and several modern conflicts in the Balkans and between Turkey and her neighbors are arguably still the result.
Nevertheless, the demonology of blame has some modern significance. If Venice is ignored and significant spleen directed at the Crusaders, there may be a particular reason for this, derived from a sort of anachronistic hostility that is directed at the Crusades in general: Where we see them condemned as imperialism, euro-centrism, racism, or the oppression of the Third World -- terms that would have been incomprehensible to anyone in the 13th century -- something is going on that owes little to history and much to modern ideology. To Islamic Fascism, its enemies are always "Crusaders," whether or not they are even Christians. To the Leftist sympathizers of Islamic Fascism, the Crusaders are simply viewed through the prism of their own Marxism and "anti-imperialist" Leninism. 
The effect also exemplifies moralistic relativism, with the Islamic Conquest of the Middle East itself ignored, complacently accepted, or approved, while any counter-attacks to that Conquest, which is what the Crusades were, are viewed with furious moral indignation. The double standard is blatant and shameless -- its very incoherence is not even an embarrassment to the post-modern deconstructionists who think that logical consistency is itself Euro-centric oppression. Thus, reactions to the Fourth Crusade, as to all the Crusades, may be more of a mirror to the present than an understanding of the past.
The destruction and theft effected by the Crusaders was probably a greater loss to civilization than almost anything that had happened to Romania during the Dark Ages. Yet there are two sides to the story, which we see in the account of Michael Choniates (c.1140-1220), the last Orthodox Archbishop of Athens before the city was taken by the Crusaders in 1205. He was forced to abandon his library, which then seems to have mostly been destroyed. We know that he had copies of Aitia and Hekale by Callimachus, which otherwise now only survive in fragments. Thus, Michael said, "Sooner will asses understand the harmony of the lyre and dung-beetles enjoy perfume than the Latins appreciate the harmony and grace of prose" [N.G. Wilson, Scholars of Byzantium, Duckworth, 1983, 1996, p.205]. This sounds rather like the chracterization of the Regents of the University of Texas by J. Frank Dobie (1888-1964), that they knew as much about academic freedom as an Arkanas razorback hog did of Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn." But some of the library seems to have been dispersed rather than destroyed, as a friend of Choniates wrote him about some books he had recovered. But the most interesting comment is a complaint from Choniates that the price of books has been rising because "booksellers were doing a great trade with Italians" [ibid.]. The Latins buying the books were probably not the same ones who had been destroying them, and we have already seen above that Italians were beginning to acquire and translate Greek literature in the 12th century.
Indeed, we know something of the Latins who were buying books. The Dominican friar William of Moerbeke (c.1215-c.1286) traveled around Romania, acquiring manuscripts and translating them himself. In 1280 he became the Latin Archbishop of Corinth, which placed him in the middle of things. His buying and translating activities may have even been at the personal request of his fellow Dominican Thomas Aquinas, who of course was himself from the South of Italy. This was after the time of Choniates, but it does mean that the buying about which he was complained continued through the century. At the same time, we know that King Manfred (1250-1266) of Naples and Sicily was actually commissioning translations of Aristotle from Bartholomew of Messinia. The translations are supposed to have been sent to the University of Paris, where Aquinas (1224-1274) might have inspected them himself [ibid. pp.226-227]. Otherwise, we think of Aquinas using translations of Aristotle that were made from Arabic editions.
Amid all the damage done by the Crusaders, there thus was also already a salvage operation in effect. The disorders of the Fourth Crusade or the Turkish Conquest were probably not the safest or most efficient ways to supply Francia with Greek literature, but what we now thankfully have is the result.
The conquest of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade did not result in the establishment of the authority of the Latin Emperors over the whole of the previous Empire. Greek authority was maintained in three major locations, at Nicaea, at Trebizond, and in Epirus, and a couple of minor locations, at Rhodes, later to fall to Venice, and at the fortress of Monembasia in the Peloponnesus (Morea), which fell in 1248. All three major Greek rulers eventually proclaimed themselves emperors, which means that at one point four rulers were claiming the Imperial dignity within the old Empire -- not to mention the Bulgarian and Serbian Tsars who also wanted to inherit it.
| Kings of Thessalonica | |
|---|---|
| Boniface of Montferrat | 1204-1207 |
| Demetrius | 1207-1224, d.1230/9 |
| Thessalonica taken by Epirus, 1224 | |
Besides the 3/8 of the whole retained by Venice, including Adrianople and Gallipoli, the Latin Empire ended up included three significant feudal dependencies, all subjugated and organized by the leader of the Fourth Crusade, Boniface the Margrave of Montferrat: the Kingdom of Thessalonica (1204-1224), with Boniface himself as king, the Duchy of Athens (1205-1456), and the Principality of Achaea (1205-1432). Boniface was denied the Imperial throne by the Venetian votes, apparently because it was thought that he might make too strong an Emperor. Instead, Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders, was elected Emperor. Baldwin's reign would be short and pathetic, but one does have to say: this is a long way from Bruges. Flanders itself, inherited by Baldwin's daughters, would continue to play a role in European history far out of proportion to its size, as its wealth contributes to the power of the Dukes of Burgundy and then the Hapsburgs. The Latin Emperors could have used some of that wealth. Their fragment of Romania had a similarly reduced tax base, and the Venetians dominated trade with an immunity to taxation. The result was that classical bronzes were melted down for the metal, and even the copper and lead roofs of churches were stripped and sold. None of the damage of the conquest was made good, while regular maintenance of walls and structures was neglected. The Greeks recovered a depreciated and degraded city in 1261.
Boniface himself was killed in 1207 and the Kingdom of Thessalonica turned out to be the most short-lived of the Crusader states in Romania, falling to Epirus. In 1311 the Duchy of Athens was seized by the Catalan Company, which had mutinied against the Palaeologi. The Principality of Achaea eventually got mixed up with the Anjevians and finally was inherited, much too late, by the Palaeologi in 1432; but the Duchy of Athens never returned to the control of Greek Romania. It fell to Meh.med II in 1456.
After the restoration of Greek rule in Constantinople, a claim to the Roman throne passed down through the descendants of Baldwin II. Charles of Anjou, who had his own designs on Romania, married a daughter to Baldwin's son Philip. Later, Charles' grandson Philip married the heiress, Catherine of Valois, of the claim. None of these claimants, however, ever had much of a chance of returning to Constantinople. Many of them, however, were also Princes of Achaea, where their succession and genealogy are given in detail.
The nimbus is not used for the Latin Emperors in the genealogy because, as Roman Catholics, they would have acknowledged Papal supremacy to a degree that the Orthodox Emperors in Constantinople never would. Latin Emperors could not be "Equal to the Apostles."
| 4. DESPOTS OF EPIRUS AND EMPERORS AT THESSALONICA | |
|---|---|
| Michael I Ducas | 1204-1215 |
| Theodore Ducas | 1215-1230 |
| 1227-1230, Emperor in Thessalonica, d.c.1254 | |
| takes Thessalonica, 1224; Defeated & Captured by John II Asen, 1230 | |
| Manuel | 1230-1237, Regent in Thessalonica, d.1241 |
| John | 1237-1242, Emperor in Thessalonica |
| Despot, 1242-1244 | |
| Defeated by John III Ducas Vatatzes, reduced to Despot, 1242 | |
| Demetrius | 1244-1246 |
| Thessalonica falls to John III Ducas Vatatzes, 1246 | |
| Michael II | 1231-1271 |
| Granted title of Despot of Epirus by John III Ducas Vatatzes, 1249 | |
| Nicephorus I | 1271-1296 |
| Thomas | 1296-1318 |
| Nicholas Orsini | 1318-1323 |
| John Orsini | 1323-1335 |
| Nicephorus II | 1335-1337, 1340, & 1355-1359 |
| Epirus absorbed by Andronicus III, 1337, 1340 | |
Epirus itself proved difficult for either Nicaea or the Palaeologi to subdue and rule, so the despots continued there for a while, continuing under some rulers unrelated to the Ducases. By the time Andronicus III was able to annex the territory, the Empire as a whole was too far gone for it to have helped very much.
| 5. EMPERORS AT TREBIZOND | |
|---|---|
| Alexius I Comnenus | 1204-1222 |
| Andronicus I Gidus | 1222-1235 |
| John I Axuch | 1235-1238 |
| Manuel I | 1238-1263 |
| Andronicus II | 1263-1266 |
| George | 1266-1280 |
| John II | 1280-1297 |
| Alexius II | 1297-1330 |
| Andronicus III | 1330-1332 |
| Manuel II | 1332 |
| Basil | 1332-1340 |
| Irene Palaeologina | 1340-1341 |
| Anna Comnena | 1341, 1341-1342 |
| Michael | 1341, 1344-1349 |
| John III | 1342-1344 |
| Alexius III | 1349-1390 |
| Manuel III | 1390-1416 |
| Alexius IV | 1416-1429 |
| John IV | 1429-1459 |
| David | 1459-1461 |
| Trebizond falls to Meh.med II, 1461 | |
Lists of the Emperors of Trebizond can be found in various Byzantine histories, but the genealogy here only comes from the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume III, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs- und Fürstenhäuser, Ergänzungsband [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Second Edition, 2001, pp.235-236].
1354 AD
In the genealogy of the Comneni of Trebizond, there are noteworthy marriages to Kings of Georgia. There is also the interesting episode of Irene, daughter of Andronicus III Palaeologus, briefly succeeding her husband Basil as ruling Empress. She was then succeeded by her sister-in-law Anna. Most extraordinary is a marriage at the end of line. A daughter, Theodora, of Emperor John IV married Uzun H.asan, a Khan of the White Sheep Turks (1457-1478), the very Khan who conquered the Black Sheep Turks in 1469 and created a regional state that stretched from Eastern Anatolia, where the White Sheep Turks originated, into Eastern Irân. This continued until the Safavids came to power in 1508.
| 6. LASCARIDS, EMPERORS AT NICAEA | |
|---|---|
| Constantine Lascaris | 1204 |
| Theodore I Lascaris | 1206-1222 |
| kills Kay Khusraw I in battle, 1211 | |
| John III Ducas Vatatzes | 1222-1254 |
| Emperor of Epirus/Thessalonica defeated, reduced to Despot, 1242; Thessalonica falls, 1246 | |
| Theodore II | 1254-1258 |
| John IV | 1258-1261 |
The Lascarids at Nicaea were perhaps the best placed to move on Constantinople, except that they were at first on the wrong side of the Bosporus. Meanwhile, the legitimacy of the regime as the successor to the Angeli was reinforced when the Patriarch of Constantinople relocated to Nicaea, as well as by the dramatic moment when Theodore I killed the Sultân of Rûm in battle.
The Asiatic base of the Lascarids was remedied, mainly by John Ducas Vatatzes, who defeated the Greek rivals at Thessalonica and creating a state that straddled Europe and Asia. This created the kind of stranglehold on Constantinople that the Turks would duplicate later.
Constantinople was regained on a chance betrayal to the Nicaean general and Regent, Michael Palaeologus. Once in power in Constantinople, Michael disposed of the actual Nicaean heir, John IV. The Lascarids, who were actually mostly the family of John Ducas Vatatzes, thus only served to obtain the restoration of Greek Romania for the Palaeologi.
C. THE LAST DAYS, 1261-1453, 192 years
| 1. SERBIA | |
|---|---|
| Tichomir | Great Prince, 1168-1169 |
| Stephan I Nemanja | 1169-1196, d.1200 |
| Serbia independent, 1180 | |
| Stephan II the First-Crowned | 1196-1217 |
| King of Serbia, 1217-1228 | |
| Stephan III Radoslav | 1228-1234 |
| Stephan IV Vladislav | 1234-1243 |
| Stephan Urosh I | 1243-1276 |
| Stephan Dragutin | 1276-1282 |
| Stephan Urosh II Milutin | 1282-1321 |
| Stephan Urosh III Dechanski | 1321-1331 |
| Stephen Urosh IV Dushan | 1331-1345 |
| Tsar of the Serbs and the Romans, 1345-1355 | |
| Stephen Urosh V the Weak | 1355-1371 |
| defeat by Murâd I at Crnomen, 1371; collapse of dynasty & authority | |
| Stephan Lazar I | Prince, 1371-1389 |
| battle of Kosovo, "Field of the Blackbirds," defeat by Murâd I, 1389 | |
| Stephan Lazar II Lazarevich | Despot, 1389-1427 |
| Turkish vassal, 1396 | |
| George Brankovich | 1427-1456 |
| Lazar III Brankovich | 1456-1458 |
| Helene Palaeologina | Regent, 1458-1459, d.1473 |
| annexed by Turkey, 1459 | |
Independence from Romania and then the passing of the most vigorous days of Bulgaria meant an opportunity for a Serbian bid for the Imperium.
This opportunity was seized by Stephan Dushan, who ended up with most of the western Balkans and was crowned Tsar of the Serbs and Romans by the autocephalous Serbian Patriarch whom he had just installed (1346) at Pec. His long reign, however, was not quite long enough, and his death set off the kind of internal dissentions that had ruined many another state in Romania. The power of Serbia was broken, and the only Tsar succeeding to the first received the epithet "the Weak," and unrelated Princes soon inherited the Kingdom.
Then, all too soon, the Ottomans arrived. Defeats in 1371 and 1389 crushed Serbia. The agony of the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, the "Field of the Blackbirds," still echoes today in the fierceness of the attachment of modern Serbs for the area, now largely populated by Albanians. As it happened, the Sult.ân Murâd I died at Kosovo, but his son, Bâyezîd the "Thunderbolt," was, if anything, even more vigorous than his father. In 1396 Bâyezîd destroyed a Crusade, led by the King of Hungary and future Emperor Sigismund, at Nicopolis (Nikopol). Not even Bâyezîd's defeat and capture by Tamerlane (1402) revived Serbian prospects.
Lists of Serbian rulers can be found in various Byzantine histories, but the genealogy here only comes from the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume II, Part 2, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs- und Fürstenhäuser II Nord-, Ost- und Südeuropa [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Part 2, Second Edition, 1997, pp.143-149].
The dynasty of Stephan Dushan is followed by two families of princes. Stephen Lazar and his son endured the Turkish defeat and conquest and were reduced to despots. They were followed by the Bronkoviches, father and son. The wife of Lazar III Brankovich, Helene, was a daughter of Thomas Palaeologus (d.1465), Despot of the Morea and brother of the last Roman Emperor, Constantine XI. After the death of Lazar, Helene was Regent of Serbia until the Turkish annexation.
| 3. BULGARIA, TERTERS | |
|---|---|
| George I Terter | 1280-1292, d.c.1304 |
| Mongol vassal, 1285 | |
| Smilech | 1292-1295/8 |
| Caka/Tshaka | 1295/8-1298/9 |
| Theodore Svetoslav | 1298/9-1322 |
| George II | 1322-1323 |
| SHISHMANS | |
| Michael III Shishman | 1323-1330 |
| John IV Stephan | 1330-1331 |
| John V Alexander | 1331-1371 |
| John Sracimir | 1355-1371, d.1396 |
| John VI Shishman | 1360-1393, d.1395 |
| disintegration of state, 1385; Ottoman vassalage, 1387, 1388, Conquest, 1396 | |
Bulgarian dynasty of the period was always at a disadvantage, ground between the Mongols, Serbs, Hungary, and the Ottomans. Ottoman conquest and annexation came in the same year (1396) as the Sult.ân Bâyezîd's defeat of a Crusade, led by the King of Hungary and future Emperor Sigismund, at Nicopolis (Nikopol), where John Sracimir was killed.
Over time, 
the Turks clearly regarded Bulgaria as strategically more important than Serbia or the Romanian principalities, and no local autonomy was allowed at all until the Russo- Turkish War of 1876-1878 and the Congress of Berlin (1878) forced it. Even then Bulgaria was divided and full independence did not come until 1908. Meanwhile, a fair number of Bulgarians had converted to Islâm. Since they were regarded as traitors by Christian Bulgarians, many of them migrated to Turkey, where they still live.
The list of Bulgarian rulers is from various Byzantine sources, including the only source of the genealogy here, which is the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume II, Part 2, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs- und Fürstenhäuser II Nord-, Ost- und Südeuropa [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Part 2, Second Edition, 1997, pp.162-163].
| 5. PALAEOLOGI | |
|---|---|
| Michael VIII Palaeologus | 1259-1282 |
| Prince of Achaea captured, 1259; Restoration of Greek rule in Constantinople, 1261; Laconia & Monembasia (soon Despotate of Morea) ceded as ransom for the Prince of Achaea, 1261; Genoese granted Galata, 1267; Anjevians defeated, 1281; the Sicilian Vespers, 30 March 1282 -- Sicily revolts against & massacres the French; end of Anjevian threat | |
| Andronicus II | 1282-1328 |
| reduction of army & navy; Venetians mint Ducats after Roman debasement, 1284; defeat by Amir 'Osmân at Magnesia & Bapheus (near Nicomedia), Ottoman conquest begins, 1302; massive earthquake on Crete, 8 August 1303; Catalan Company hired, 1303, revolts, 1305; Ephesus lost to Beg of Aydïn, 1304; Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, the Hospitalers, on Rhodes, 1308-1523; Prusa [Bursa] lost, 1326 | |
| Michael IX | heir of Andronicus, 1295-1320 |
| Andronicus III | 1321-1341 |
| defeat by Orkhân, 1329; Nicaea [I.znik] lost, 1331; Nicomedia [I.zmid] lost, 1337; Epirus annexed, 1337, 1340 | |
| John V | 1341-1376, 1379-1391 |
| Umur I, Beg of Aydïn & ally of John Cantacuzenus, defeated by Venice & Romania, looses harbor of Smyrna, 1344; Grand Duke of Moscow contributes money to repair St. Sophia, 1346;
Black Death arrives at Constantinople, 1347 | |
| John VI Cantacuzenus | regent, 1341 |
| 1341-1354, abdicated | |
| Civil War, 1341-1347; Crown Jewels pawned to Venice, 1343; Bubonic Plague, 1347; revenue of Galata seven times that of Constantinople, 1348; Genoese from Galata burn Roman shipyard, 1348; War between Venice & Genoa, 1350-1355; Kallipolis [Gelibolu] lost, 1354, Ottoman foothold in Europe; John V visits Hungary, first Emperor to visit a foreign court, 1365; Adrianople [Edirne] lost, 1369; John goes to Rome & Venice, 1369-1371; Empire Vassal of Murâd I | |
| Andronicus IV | 1376-1379; heir, 1381-1385 |
| Thessalonica lost, 1387 | |
| Manuel Cantacuzenus, Despot of Morea | 1348-1380 |
| Matthew Cantacuzenus, Despot of Morea | 1354-1383 |
| 1380-1383 | |
| Demetrius Cantacuzenus, Despot of Morea | 1383 |
| John VII | 1390, flees to Bâyezîd I; regent, 1399-1403 |
| Philadelphia lost, 1390 | |
| Theodore I Palaeologus, Despot of Morea | 1383-1407 |
| Manuel II | 1391-1425 |
| Russian Church stops mention of Emperor, 1392; Ottoman vassalage repudiated, 1394; siege of Constantinople, 1394-1402; Battle of Nicopolis, Sigismund of Hungary defeated by Bâyezîd I, 1396; Emperor travels to Italy, France, England, 1400-1403; Thessalonica returned, 1403, ceded to Venice, 1423; Siege of Constantinople by Murad II, 1422 | |
| Theodore II Palaeologus, Despot of Morea | 1407-1443 |
| John VIII | 1425-1448 |
| attends the Church Council at Ferrara & Florence, 1439-1440; Crusade of Varna, victory at Nish, Skanderbeg & Albanians defect from Turks, 1443, defeated at Varna, Vadislav of Hungary & Poland killed, 1444 | |
| Constantine XI Dragases | Despot of Morea 1428-1449 |
| 1449-1453 | |
| Constantinople [I.stanbul] falls to Meh.med II, 1453 | |
| Thomas, Despot of Morea | 1428-1460, d.1465 |
| Principality of Achaea inherited, 1432; Mistra, Morea, falls to Meh.med II, 1460; last piece of Romania, the fortress of Monembasia, ceded to the Pope, 1461; daughter Zoë marries Ivan III of Russia, 1472; Thomas dies at Rome, 1465 | |
Michael Palaeologus restores the Greeks to Constantinople, and for a time Romania acted as a Great Power again, fending off Charles of Anjou, with Genoa now replacing Venice as commercial agents and Italians-of-choice in Constantinople. But it was a precarious position. Michael himself sowed the seeds of disaster by confiscating land from the tax exempt akritai (sing. akritês), the landed frontier (ákros) fighters of Bithynia. This weakened defenses that Andronicus II weakened further with military economies, failing to follow the maxim of Machiavelli that the first duty of a prince is war. Once the Ottomans broke the Roman army in Bithynia (1302), they, and other Turks, quickly reduced Roman possessions in Asia to fragments, never to be recovered. Bithynia (Prusa, Nicaea, and Nicomedia) became the base of Ottoman power, with Prusa, as Bursa, the Ottoman capital.
In this period flags in the modern sense were just beginning to come into use; and there were 14th century banners that would have evolved into a proper flag for Romania, given the chance. We find a field with a Cross, like many Crusader banners and flags, with the addition of curious devices, which look like images and mirror-images of something between the letter B, the letter E, and broken links of a chain. These are sometimes said to have already been used by Constantine I and have been variously interpreted. One interpretation that is seen is to take them as B's which abbreviate Basileus Basileôn Basileuôn Basileusin, "King of Kings ruling over Kings." However, Basileus in Mediaeval Greek meant the Emperor, not "king," while the Latin word rêx was used for actual kings. So this formula would have to be employing anachronistic usages of basileus. That's possible, but the Rhômaioi could also find something of the sort offensive. So this looks like a retrospective and speculative interpretation.
Another possibility is that they are stylized forms of Crescent Moons, originally symbolic of the divine patroness of Byzantium, the goddess Artemis. The stylized forms have been inherited in the arms of 
Serbia, and crescents are used as a Serb national symbol, seen at left -- something that has probably become a sign of terror to non-Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. If it was the Crescent that was originally used in Constantinople, 
this may have been directly inherited by Turkey. A Crescent is now commonly taken as symbolic of Islâm, but this may not antedate the Turkish flag. The star on the Turkish flag is sometimes said to be Romanian also, symbolizing the Virgin Mary, but it does not occur on the earliest Turkish flags. However, Whitney Smith 
[Flags Through the Ages and Across the World, McGraw-Hill, 1975] shows a flag identified only as "medieval Russian" that shows a cross with four crescents and four stars also [p.174]. The crescents are oriented differently, but this design seems too elaborate not to have Roman antecedents.
The banner that Whitney Smith shows for Romania itself [p.45] has the flag with the distinctive devices quartered with a simple red cross on white. One does not find this banner, or other Roman symbols, shown or discussed in the standard Byzantine histories. This seems peculiar, and Smith gives no reference for his banner. Wikipedia does cite a Spanish atlas circa 1350, the Conoscimento de todos los Reinos. If we do not know of it from Greek sources, that is probably why it does not figure in the Byzantine histories.
I would like to know more about the history and meaning of such a banner. The red cross on white came to be identified as the Cross of St. George, which is how we see it as the flag of England -- something that is coming into increasing use today, when England often has sports teams separate from Scotland (which uses the Cross of St. Andrew). But St. George has been widely popular and is the patron of many places, including Barcelona, Portugal, Beirut, Georgia in the Caucasus, and various other states and cities. While the red on white Cross was used by 
Genoa and some other Italian cities, there is the complication that St. George is not the Patron Saint of Genoa (although this is sometimes said to be the case, as I have been doing previously) -- that is John the Baptist. The Genoese cross is thus perhaps not originally the Cross of St. George at all -- although there is a story about the red cross and St. George being brought back from the First Crusade (1099), which is possible. Wikipedia says that ships from London began using the red Cross on white in the Mediterranian in 1190 precisely to benefit from the protection of Genoa -- the Doge was paid an annual tribute for the privilege of this use. Since Genoa became the ally of Constantinople under the Palaeologi, I wonder if the banner actually reflects that alliance. In modern custom, the upper corner by the staff, the canton, is the key quarter, so the quartering we see could be something used in the first place by the Genoese.
There is the issue of just how and when the red cross on white becomes associated with St. George. The Saint, as a native of Lydda in Palestine, was popular in the Orthodox Churches (a cave near Beirut is still pointed out as the site of his slaying the dragon, although other places also claim that distinction), and the earliest known depiction of him slaying the dragon is from 11th century Cappadocia, but I am not otherwise aware of him being particularly iconic for the identity of Romania or Constantinople -- as I have noted, Byzantine histories have little discussion of such symbols. The crosses in general are artifacts of the Crusades, and the particular popularity of St. George in the West was itself the result of Crusaders bringing his cult and legend back with them. In a 1188 meeting between Richard the Lionheart and the King Philip II Augustus of France, red on white was chosen for the Crusaders of 
France and white on red for those of England, but this was apparently a random assignment and did not involve any 
preexisting attachment of France, or of these colors, for St. George (see more about this elsewhere). And these assignments persisted for some time. In the St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans, the body of St. Louis, who died in 1270, is still shown draped in the red on white. Since St. George was not the patron of Genoa, the association of the red cross with the Saint is more likely to originate at the source with the Crusaders. It is noteworthy that the church of the English Varangians in Constantinople was dedicated to St. Nicholas and St. Augustine of Canterbury. One would have expected a church of English warriors to involve St. George, if St. George was already associated with England. He wasn't.
Nevertheless, I do find positive statements at Wikipedia that in England St. George had along been revered and the red cross on white had long been associated with him even before the Third Crusade, and that the white cross on red was assigned by the Pope to England but then switched with France at the 1188 meeting between Richard and Philip II. This is inconsistent with my other sources (e.g. Whitney Smith, Znamierowski, or elsewhere at Wikipedia), does not seem to be attested by the evidence, as noted below, and in general is not consistent with the understanding that the use of crosses originated with the Crusades (at a time when national flags or settled national colors did not exist), involved variable colors for many years, and that the veneration of St. George was brought back by the Crusaders. I worry that claims for the antiquity of the specifically English "Cross of St. George" are ahistorical, nationalistic, and fantastical in motivation.
Since the red on white cross, as a symbol of St. George, has become distinctive of England, I begin to wonder to what extent it actually reflects the history of English involvement with Romania. Indeed, if the Cross of St. George here originated with Crusaders in the East, its interpretation as an English symbol could well have been due to the English Varangians themselves, who would have fought under it for many years and picked up the cult of St. George just as the Crusaders did. It is attested that by 1277, 
the English cross had settled on the red on white coloring, and this was at the time of perhaps the heyday of English Varangians under Michael VIII -- who wrote the letter mentioning them in 1272. Whitney Smith says that the red cross was not really prominent for another century [p.182], while The Penguin Dictionary of Saints [1965, 1983] says that George "may have been named the national patron when King Edward III founded the Order of the Garter under his patronage, c.1348" [p.146]. I might therefore entertain the speculation that what became the traditional coloring of the English Cross of St. George
, and its identity as the Cross of St. George, might actually have been derived from a Romanian even more than from a Genoese source. This would be a monument unlike any other to the history of the English involvement in Constantinople. Since most histories of England ignore the very existence of English Varangians, the connection of the Cross of St. George to them falls into a kind of secret history.
Raffaele D'Amato [op.cit. p.12] says that one of the last references to the English Varangians was a letter written by John VII (who was Regent, 1399-1403, for his uncle Manuel II) to King Henry IV of England in 1402, speaking of them helping in the Turkish siege of Constantinople, 1394-1402. D'Amato adds that "'Axe-bearing soldiers of the British race' are referred to by Byzantine envoys in Rome as late as 1404..." This is apparently the last reference to English Varangians. If Michael VIII was also writing to a King of England about English Varangians in 1272, which is possible but is not stated by Blöndal and Benedikz or by D'Amato, this would have been Henry III -- which means that Emperors wrote to Kings Henry II, Henry III, and Henry IV about English subjects in the Varangian Guard. That would be a nice touch. Even without Michael VIII, we do see a history of the Emperors expressing concern to Kings of England about the presence and activities of Englishmen in Romania. And there certainly may have been other communications whose record has not survived.
The double headed (dicephalic) Eagle is also a Romanian device, said to have been introduced by Michael VIII, with the two heads looking towards the Anatolian and European halves of the Empire, as the Emperor did from Constantinople. Or, Donald M. Nicol [Byzantium and Venice, a Study in Diplomatic and Cultural 
Relations, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 249] says, it was adopted by Andronicus II to symbolize the division of authority with his grandson, Andronicus III -- though it far outlasted that particular division. However, it looks like dicephalic eagles long antedate this and are found in Hittite, Armenian, and even Seljuk iconography, with the latter perhaps suggested by remaining Hittite images in Anatolia. The earliest use in Romania seems to have been with Isaac Comnenus. Eagles have been used by many (including the United States and modern Romania) to imply Roman antecedents; but the double headed eagle, despite the low level of power to which the Palaeologi had fallen, was adopted in particular by the Holy Roman Empire (followed by Austria) and by Russia, and subsequently by 
Serbia (as we see at left, with the devices discussed above), Montenegro, Armenia, Albania, and others. In direct continuity with Romania, it is also used by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Although the eagle had disappeared from much Communist iconography, it has returned since the Fall of Communism. One Communist regime that continued to use it even on its flag, was Albania, to commemorate George Castriota (Gjergj Kastrioti), or Skanderbeg, who drove the Turks out of Albania between 1443 and 1463 (note in the genealogy below that Skanderbeg's son John marries a Palaeologina).
In the last days of Romania, as all else was being lost, one domain expanded. That was the Despotate of the Morea (Môréas, Môriás) the Mediaeval name of the Peloponnesus -- a name apparently derived from the mulberry trees (Latin morus, Greek moréa, Modern Greek mouriá) that had been extensively planted there for silk worms and sericulture, after silkworm eggs were smuggled from China in the days of Justinian. After the Fourth Crusade, the last of the Morea, the fortress of Monembasia, had fallen to the Latins The Fall of Constantinople, on May 29, 1453, is one of the most formative, epochal, colorful, and dramatic episodes in world history. As the final end of the Roman Empire, it was a much more revolutionary and catastrophic change than the "fall" of the Western Empire in 476, in which power remained in the same hands of the current magister militum. That the greatest Christian city of the Middle Ages should pass to Islâm held a symbolism that was lost on none. But the defenders had little active help from a Europe that four hundred years earlier had launched armies all the way to Jerusalem. The most active help was from an unofficial Italian contingent from Genoa (which officially did not want to break relations with the Ottomans), led by the accomplished soldier Giovanni Giustiniani Longo. Giustiniani was perhaps militarily the most effective leader of the defense. When he was wounded and left the walls, one is then not surprised to learn that the city fell on that day. As the last Emperor's name, Constantine XI, recalls the founder of the city, Giustiniani's name echoes the Emperor, Justinian, who recovered Genoa itself from the Ostrogoths. But it was only the introduction of cannon that made the breach in the Long Walls possible at all. The surname Palaeologus survives today, but it is not clear that any modern Palaeologi are descendants of the Imperial family. In the genealogy, we see considerable intermarriage outside the Empire, even to Tsars of Bulgaria. The marriage of Zoë-Sophia to Ivan III of Moscow is the one most filled with portent, but the last Russian Tsar to be their descendant was Theodore I (1584-1598).
John Julius Norwich (Byzantium, The Decline and Fall, Knopf, 1996, pp.447-448) notes that there is buried in St. Leonard's church in Landulph, Cornwall, England a "Theodore Paleologus" (d.1636) from Italy, who is said to have been a direct descendant of John, son of Thomas, Despot of the Morea. However, Thomas is not known to have had a son John, and so the claim of descent, regardless of any other merits, is questionable. Theodore had a son Ferdinand, who died in Barbados in 1678. Ferdinand had a son "Theodorious," who returned to England and died in 1693, leaving a daughter, "Godscall," whose fate is unknown.
What John Norwich seems to have missed is that there were undoubted lines of Palaeologi (Paleologhi) in Italy, descended from the Emperor Andronicus II, whose second wife was Yolanda, the Heiress of the Margraves of Montferrat. While Andronicus's eldest son succeeded in Constantinople, his son by Yolanda, Theodore, succeeded to Montferrat. The main line of the Palaeologi of Montferrat continued until the death of the Marchioness Margaret in 1556. But branch lines continued much longer, perhaps even to the 20th century. This is covered in the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume II, Part 2, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs- und Fürstenhäuser II Nord-, Ost- und Südeuropa [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Part 2, Second Edition, 1997, pp.260-261], which, however, only indicates that the lines continue after the 16th century. While there may or may not be surviving Imperial Palaeologi, Constantine XI lives on in legend. When the Turks had manifestly broken through and the Fall of the City imminent, the Emperor reportedly threw off the Imperial Regalia and disappeared into the thick of the fight. There is no doubt that he died. A body was later identified and a head displayed, but some doubt remains about the identification. A story arose that Constantine sleeps under the Golden Gate (like Barbarossa under the Kyffhäuser), or that he would reenter the City through that Gate. Generations of Turkish governments took these stories with sufficient seriousness that the Golden Gate remains bricked up to this very day -- like the Golden Gate in Jerusalem, through which the Messiah is supposed to enter the City. A similar legend concerns Sancta Sophia. We find a version of it in, of all places, one of Anne Rice's vampire fictions:
It is not at all difficult to imagine that Sancta Sophia was built with secret passages or chambers. Justinian might even seem negligent if he had not done that. Whether deathless priests wait there for the liberation of the church is a more demanding idea, although perhaps not much more demanding than the changes in politics and demography that would be necessary for Constantinople to be restored to Christendom -- a Christendom, or at least a European Christendom, that these days seems to have lost faith, confidence, and will far more than contemporary Islâm.
The fate of the Holy Icons that had protected Constantinople is of some interest. 
in 1248. But then Monembasia and Laconia were returned in 1261 as ransom for William II de Villehardouin (1246-1278), Prince of Achaea, who had been captured in battle in 1259. On Mt. Taygetos, to the west above the ancient city of Sparta, the castle of Mistra (or Misithra) had been founded by Prince William in 1248. Under the Palaeologi, this grew into a complex of buildings and became a surprising center of art and learning as well as the capital of the Despotate. Indeed, one could even say that the Renaissance began there, since many of its scholars, with their books, fled the Turkish Conquest to Italy, which was ready for them. The Morea became a kind of Viceroyalty under the Cantacuzeni Despots. Under the Palaeologi, starting in 1383, the Despot (sometimes more than one) was usually a son or brother of the Emperor. The last Emperor, Constantine XI, began as a Despot of Morea. He very nearly acquired Athens in 1435. His brother, the last Despot, Thomas, married the Heiress of Achaea and came into possession of the Principality and all the Peloponnesus in 1432. By then there was little time left for further successes. The last thing left to Thomas by the Ottomans was, again, the fortress of Monembasia. Thomas never took the obvious step of declaring himself the new Emperor in succession to his brother, and he turned over Monembasia to the Pope in 1461 (or 1460). The Pope thus became, as Popes had long desired, the ruler of all the Roman Empire. The Pope sold the fortress to Venice in 1463 (or 1464). It remained with Venice, 1463-1538, fell to the Ottomans, and then was recovered by Venice, 1684-1715. Ottoman possession was then followed by that of modern Greece in 1821.
Because of all that it is a little puzzling that there has never been, to my knowledge, a Hollywood movie about the event. The closest may have been the brief prologue to Bram Stoker's Dracula [1991], by Francis Ford Coppola, where we see the Cross thrown down from the dome of Sancta Sophia and a Crescent appear in its place. One problem with doing the story may be in great measure because of the scale of the location. The Theodosian Land Walls of Constantinople are 6.5 kilometers long, almost 4 miles. Since the ruins of the walls could not be used, and the whole length could not be built (as the whole Alamo was build by John Wayne for The Alamo), other devices would be necessary. With computer graphic effects, a portion of the Wall could be built with the rest filled in digitally, the way the top half of the Coloseum was filled in for Gladiator. And models could be used. With the older technology, this would have looked very cheesy. However, models now can look much, much better -- the models for Lord of the Rings (2001) even came to be called "big-atures" instead of "miniatures" they were so large. CG and models would also work for another problem, which would be showing the general situation of the city between the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, and the Golden Horn. A live shot of the modern buildings would not help. But the whole thing could be done digitally, or live shots could be digitalized and edited, to remove modern buildings and render mediaeval ones. This would also help with scenes in Sancta Sophia. The movie would have to show church services there, but my understanding is that these are not allowed in the modern building, even though it is now a secularized museum rather than the mosque it became at the Conquest (there is a small Islamic chapel, but not a Christian one). No problem. All we need is a photograph, and Industrial Light and Magic can put Constantine XI and the whole gang right into it with all the paraphernalia of the Greek Orthodox Church. Even so, it is questionable how interested Hollywood will ever be, even after Gladiator, and even when the legendary material, like the Virgin Mary retrieving her Icon, or the various versions of the death of Constantine, simply cry out for cinematic representation. With the present conflicts involving Islâm, some might consider the whole topic inflammatory; and it is very possible that Turkey would not allow location filming for such a movie.
The Theodore buried in Cornwall could very well have simply gotten confused about his genealogy. He might have been a genuine Paleologo from Italy.
"...as the Turks stormed the church, some of the priests left the altar of Santa Sofia [sic]," he said. "They took with them the chalice and the Blessed Sacrament, our Lord's Body and Blood. They are hidden this very day in the secret chambers of Santa Sofia, and on the very moment that we take back the city, on the very moment when we take back the great church of Santa Sofia, when we drive the Turks out of our capital, those priests, those very priests will return. They'll come out of their hiding place and go up the steps of the altar, and they will resume the Mass at the very point where they were forced to stop." [The Vampire Armand, 1983, Ballantine Books, 1999, p.110]
The Hodêgêtria Icon (the Virgin who "Shows the Way"), kept at the Hodegon Monastery and displayed in a procession every week, had been moved to the Church of St. Savior in Chora (subsequently the Kariye Mosque), to be closer to the Walls during the siege. What we hear is that after the breakthrough, the Turks stormed the Church and chopped up the Icon for souvenirs. The Blachernitissa (or Blacherniotissa) Icon and the Maphorion, the Robe of the Virgin, which were kept at the Church of the Virgin Mary at Blachernae, near the Walls, and which had been brought out to protect the City during sieges (the Maphorion is supposed to have repulsed the Avars in 626), both disappeared with the Fall of the City -- although there is no mention of them after the Church burned in 1434. One story, however, is that Constantine XI was praying to the Icon the night before the City fell, and as he watched, it was taken up to Heaven. He therefore knew what was going to happen the next day.
| 6. ROMÂNIANS |
|---|
Welschen originally was a German word for Celts (perhaps from the name of the Celtic tribe, the Volcae, in Latin) and then the Romano-Celts and then just for Romans.
| WALLACHIA | MOLDAVIA | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Tihomir | c.1290-1310 | ||
| Ioan Basarab I | Voivode, Prince 1317-1352 | ||
| Nicholas Alexander | 1352-1364 | Dragosh | Voivode, Prince 1352-1353 |
| Sas | 1354-1358 | ||
| Balc | 1359 | ||
| Bogdan I the Founder | Prince 1359-1365 | ||
| Vladislav I Vlaicu | 1364-1377 | Latcu | 1365-1373 |
| Costea | 1373-1375 | ||
| Radu I | 1377-1383 | Petru I al Mushatei | 1375-1391 |
| Dan I | 1383-1386 | ||
| Mircea the Old | 1386-1418 | Roman I | 1391-1394 |
| Stephen I | 1394-1399 | ||
| Vlad I | part, 1394-1397 | Ologul (Iuga) | 1399-1400 |
| Initial Ottoman Control, 1395 | |||
| Michael I | 1418-1420 | Alexander the Good | 1400-1432 |
| Dan II | 1420-1431 | Ilias, Elias | 1432-1433, 1435-1442 |
| Radu II the Poor | 1421, 1423, & 1447 | ||
| Alexander I | 1431-1436 | ||
| Vlad II Dracul | 1436-1442, 1443, 1447 | Stephen II | 1433-1447 |
| Mircea | 1442 | Petru II | 1444-1445, 1447, 1448-1449 |
| Basarab II | 1442-1443 | ||
| Iancu de Hunedoara (János Hunyadi) | Prince of Transylvania, 1441-1456 | Roman II | 1447-1448 |
| Regent of Hungary, 1446-1456 | Ciubar | 1448-1449 | |
| 1447 | |||
| Crusade of Varna, victory at Nish, Skanderbeg & Albanians defect from Turks, 1443, defeated at Varna by Murâd II, Vadislav of Hungary & Poland killed, 1444 | Alexandrel | 1449, 1452-1454, 1455 | |
| Vladslav II | 1447-1448, 1448-1456 | ||
| Bogdan II | 1449-1451 | ||
| Vlad III Tepesh, the Impaler | 1448, 1456-1462, 1476 | Petru Aron | 1451-1452, 1454-1455, 1455-1457, d.1469 |
| Initial Ottoman Control, 1455 | |||
| Radu I cel Frumos | 1462-1475 | Stephen III the Great | 1457-1504 |
| Basarab Laiota | 1473, 1474-1475, 1476-1477 | ||
| Basarab Tepelush | 1477-1481, 1481-1482 | ||
| Vlad Calugarul | 1481, 1482-1495 | ||
| Radu II cel Mare, the Great | 1495-1508 | Ottoman Control, 1504 | |
| Bodgan III the Blind | 1504-1517 | ||
| Mihnea cel Rau | 1508-1509, d.1510 | ||
| Mircea | 1509-1510 | ||
| Vlad cel Tinar | 1510-1512 | ||
| Neagoe Basarab | 1512-1521 | Shtefanita, Stephan IV cel Tanar | 1517-1527 |
| Teodosie | 1521 | ||
| Vlad (Dragomir Calugarul) | 1521, d.1522 | ||
| Radu III de la Afumati | 1522-1523, 1524, 1524-1525, 1525-1529 | ||
| Valdislav III | 1523, 1524, 1525 | ||
| Radu IV Badica | 1523-1524 | Petru IV Raresh | 1527-1538, 1541-1546 |
| Moise | 1529-1530 | Stefan V Lacusta | 1538-1540 |
| Alexander III Cornea | 1540-1541 | ||
| Vlad Înecatul | 1530-1532 | Ilias, Elias II | 1546-1551, 1562 |
| Vlad Vintila | 1532-1535 | Stefan VI | 1551-1552 |
| Radu (V) Paisie | 1535-1545 | Ioan/John I Joldea | 1552 |
| Mircea Ciobanul | 1545-1552, 1553-1554, 1558-1559 | Alexandru Lapushneanu | 1552-1561, 1564-1568, 1568 |
| Radu (VI) Ilie | 1552-1553 | Despot Voda (Iacob Basilikos Heraklides/Eraclid) | 1561-1563 |
| Patrascu cel Bun (the Kind) | 1554-1557 | Sephen Tomsha | 1563-1564 |
| Petru cel Tinar | 1559-1568, d.1569 | Bogdan Laprushneanu | 1568-1572 |
| Alexander II | 1568-1574, 1574-1577 | Ion Voda (John the Terrible) | 1572-1574 |
| Vintila | 1574 | Petru Schiopul (the Lame) | 1574-1577, 1578-1579, 1582-1591, 1594 |
| Mihnea Turcitul | 1577-1583, 1585-1591, d.1601 | Ioan Potcoava | 1577 |
| Petru Cercel | 1583-1585, d.1590 | Iancu Sasul | 1579-1582 |
| Stephen Surdul | 1591-1592 | Aron the Terrible | 1592-1595, d.1597 |
| Alexander cel Rau | 1592-1593 | Stefan Razvan | 1595 |
| Ieremia Moghila | 1595-1600 | ||
| 1593-1600, d.1601 | Michael (Mihail) II the Brave | Transylvania, 1599-1600 | |
| 1600 | |||
| Continues under Ottoman Control; Lines of Princes Continued | |||
Wealh in Old English apparently was used to indicate pockets of British settlement after the conquest of the Angles, Saxons, etc., as in the place-names Walcot, Walden, Walford, and Wallington. We also have English and Scots surnames, like Wallace, Walsh, and Waugh, that have the root (cf. A Dictionary of Surnames, Patrick Hanks and Flavia Hodges, Oxford University Press, 1988, pp.563-564, 568). As a Scots name, "Wallace" goes back to the Britons of Strathclyde. We get Valland used in Icelandic for France (Francia Occidentalis). Even now, Walloon -- Waalsch in Dutch or Flemish -- is used for French speakers in Belgium.
This Germanic word for Romans seems to have been left, perhaps by the Goths, in the Balkans. It turns up as Vlach in Czech, one of many words for the Romance language, and its speakers, in Slavic languages. The Latin form "Blachus" and the Greek 
, Vlakhos, also occur. We see surnames in Polish, Wloch, Russian, Volokhov, (the Uralic language) Hungarian, Olasz, etc.
In modern parlance, the convention for some time was that Romance speakers south of the Danube spoke "Vlach" and those north of the Danube spoke "Romanian." "Romanian" is now also coming to be used for the languages (Arumanian, etc.) south of the Danube also, with "Daco-Romanian" used to specific the north of the Danube language.
The Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia are the first Vlach/Romanian states that we see north of the Danube. They appear in the period after incursions from nomadic Steppe empires ceased. They were never subject to the Roman Emperors in Constantinople, and they occupied territories that had been abandoned by the Roman Empire in the Third Century, or never occupied by it in the first place. The arrival of the Turks subjected them to Ottoman suzerainty, but this was of varying rigor. The lines of Princes continued, but by 1711 the Sult.ân began to sell the seats to Greek tax farmers, a destructive practice that continued until 1821.
The most famous person in these lines is certainly Prince Vlad the Impaler of Wallachia. In legend and horror, one might almost say romance, this cruel man has grown into the paradigmatic vampire, Count Dracula, though his home has been slightly relocated, from Wallachia to Transylvania and the Carpathian Mountains (between Transylvania and Moldavia). For a while, I was under the impression that Prince Vlad Dracul (1436-1442, 1443, 1447) was Vlad the Impaler. However, a Romanian correspondent straightened me out, that Prince Vlad the Impaler was not Vlad Dracul but instead the subsequent Prince Vlad T,epesh (1448, 1456-1462, 1476, also "Vlad Draculea"), his son. The correspondent also pointed out the interesting career of Iancu de Hunedoara (János Hunyadi) as Prince of Transylvania and Regent of Hungary, for which links have been installed. Vlad the Impaler's career had many ups and downs. Once while in exile in Hungary, he married a sister of the Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus (Latin corvinus, crow or raven-like), who himself happened to be the son of Iancu de Hunedoara. The association of Vlad with vampires has now drawn Corvinus into that legend, as we see in the Underworld [2004, 2006, 2009] movies -- although without the slightest reference to the real history of Matthias or de Hunedoara.
The title of these rulers was Voivode, a word that we even find in Bram Stoker (Dracula, Penguin Books, 1897, 1993, p.309). This term no longer appears in convenient Romanian or Hungarian dictionaries, for any of its meanings (c.f. NTC's Romanian and English Dictonary, Andreí Bantas, NTC Publishing Group, 1995; Hippocrene Concise Dictionary, Hungarian, Hungarian-English, English-Hungarian, Géza Takács, Hippocrene Books, 1996; or Hippocrene Standard Dictionary, English-Hungarian Dictionary, T. Magay & L. Kiss, Hippocrene Books, 1995). Those meanings began with "duke" or "prince" and ultimately declined to merely "governor," which would have been appropriate to Wallachia or Moldavia under the Turks. This word is actually Slavic, and is thus discussed under Eastern Europe, but its ultimate origin was the Roman title (dux, "leader") in Greek, stratêlatês ("army," stratos, "leader," elaunein, "to lead"), which was also the source of German Herzog.
The Vlach language of the Principalities, not a written language in the Middle Ages, came to be written in the Cyrillic alphabet. The unified country itself became first "Roumania" or "Rumania," later further Latinized into "România," and soon the Cyrillic alphabet was traded in for the Latin alphabet, as the Roman roots of the people were increasingly emphasized. The issue of România and the Vlach language and people is discussed further in "The Vlach Connection and Further Reflections on Roman History."
In contrast to the original Romania, i.e. the Roman Empire (Imperium Romanum), the north-of-the-Danube state might usefully be characterized as "Lesser Romania" (Romania Minor) on analogy to "Lesser Armenia" in the Taurus; but this would probably be considered insulting by modern Românians. Perhaps "Later Romania" (Romania Posterior, Recentior) would be better, like the Later Han Dynasty -- making the Empire into the "Former Romania" (Romania Prior), like the Former Han Dynasty. However, since Armenia is rarely called "Greater Armenia" in contrast to Lesser Armenia, we might simply leave România as România and make the contrast with "Greater Romania" (Romania Maior) as the 
Roman Empire, where clarity is needed.
The map shows all the territories that ultimately were assembled into modern România. Transylvania, although predominately Romanian speaking, was part of Hungary all through the Middle Ages right down to the end of World War I. Bessarabia also became part of România at that time, was subsequently annexed to the Soviet Union, and now is the independent, and painfully impoverished, nation of Moldova.
The list of Princes here is taken from the Regentenlisten und Stammtafeln zur Geschichte Europas, by Michael F. Feldkamp [Philipp Reclam, Stuttgart, 2002, pp.142-144 & 259-261].
România, Lines of Princes Continued
Rome and Romania is continued in The Ottoman Sultans, 1290-1924 AD, Successors of Rome: Germania, 395-774, Successors of Rome: Francia, 447-present, Successors of Rome: The Periphery of Francia, and Successors of Rome: Russia, 862-present.
Decadence, Rome and Romania, and the Emperors Who Weren't
There is a series of books that works something like this. The Osprey Publishing [Oxford, New York] "Men-at-Arms" series divides all this history up between five small books (about 40 pages each). The first two are explicitly titled "The Roman Army," and the last two "Byzantine Armies." Michael Simkins authors the first two [1984, 1979], and Ian Heath the last two [1979, 1995]. The titles seem to reflect some differences in thinking. The "Roman" books are, first, "from Caesar to Trajan," and then "from Hadrian to Constantine." 
The "Byzantine" books use dates, first "886-1118" (the death of Basil I to that of Alexius I), and then "AD 1118 to 1461" (i.e. to the fall of Trebizond). There is a rather large gap between the "Roman" and the "Byzantine" books, which is then filled with "Romano-Byzantine Armies 4th-9th Centuries," by a third author, David Nicolle [1992]. This book covers a vast amount of time and very different conditions, from Late Antiquity, including the Army of the Notitia Dignitatum, through the Arab Conquests to the beginning of the Macedonian Dynasty. The two "Roman" books have common illustrator, Ron Embleton, while all the others are illustrated by Angus McBride.
The impression we get from this is of two different centers of history, the "Roman" and the "Byzantine," which have a bit awkwardly and even tenuously been bridged with a treatment that reminds us, at last, that we are dealing with a continuous story. Yet this middle book covers events that call out for detailed treatment, from the German invasions and the Battle of Adrianople, to the Arab Conquest, to the development of the Themes and Tagmata, through the Arab Sieges of Constantinople and the use of Greek Fire. It is odd to see all that shoved together in the same small brief format as with all these books. It makes this part of the publishing project look more like an afterthought, which perhaps it is.
Bede identifies several Emperors by number. This includes Claudius, #4, Marcus Aurelius, #14, Diocletian, #33, Gratian, #40, Arcadius, #43, Honorius, #44, Theodosius II, #45, Marcian, #46, and Maurice, #54. This numbering works if we eliminate three of the four Emperors of 69 AD, the ephemeral Emperors of 193 and 218, a couple of them from the Third Century, most of the Tetrarchy and Constantian coregents, and, most importantly, all of the Western Emperors after Honorius. The latter is especially striking because Bede mentions Valentinian III: "In the year of our Lord 449, Marcian became Emperor with Valentinian and fourty-sixth successor to Augustus" [Bede, A History of the English Church and People, Penguin Classics, translated by Leo Sherley-Price, 1955, 1964, p.55]. Since Theodosius II was already identified as the 45th Emperor, there is no number left for Valentinian (Emperor since 425), let alone Constantius III or John, who had been legitimate Emperors of the West. From Marcian to Maurice, the numbers only work if we then ignore all the rest of the Western Emperors, out of nine of which four were even recognized by the East. So Bede doesn't recognize any.
As it happens, it looks like Bede has gotten his numbered list from Orosius, who wrote the Historiarum Adversum Paganos Libri VII, "Seven Books of Histories Against the Pagans" (or the Hormesta). This was written around 418 AD and thus ends in the reigns of Honorius and Theodosius II. It was a popular book in the Middle Ages, with almost two hundred surviving manuscripts, which is extraordinary, with translations into several languages, including English and Arabic -- where the latter made it accessible to Ibn Khaldûn. It does not have much favor, however, with modern historians, and is not issued in popular editions (such as Penguin Classics). Unlike Bede, Orosius sometimes discusses the nature of his numbering, for instance that Constantius II was the 35th Emperor "along with his brothers, Constantine and Constans," but they receive no number in their own right. One curious detail is that Claudius is "the third Emperor after Augustus," where Bede has him as the 4th Emperor, but both Orosius and Bede number Diocletian as #33. It looks like Orosius may have shifted from the number of the Emperor "after Augustus" to a numbering beginning with Augustus as the first, while Bede has the whole sequence regularized in the latter form. But there are also some actual disagreements. To Orosius, Gratian was the 39th Emperor (40th for Bede), Arcadius and Honorius, the 41st (43th and 44th for Bede). So Bede is not mechanically reproducing the assignments of Orosius [cf. Seven Books of History against the Pagans, Liverpool University Press, 2010]. This is a matter of some interest that I have never seen discussed.
Although writing in the 7th and 8th centuries (673-735), in the days of multiple Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in Britain, Bede nevertheless had a strong sense of the continued existence of the Roman Empire. He knows that the Empire is now centered in Christian Constantinople, and his awareness of this is strong enough that it actually erases the existence of the last Western Emperors. The idea common now that the Roman Empire fell in 476, wouldn't have made sense to Bede. He didn't even recognize the Emperor who "fell," Romulus Augustulus, as a successor of Augustus (neither did the East, for that matter). Ephemeral and puppet Emperors (whether in the 2nd or 5th centuries) don't make the cut in his reckoning. This is of a piece with most of the rest of Mediaeval opinion and perception, East and West. Since the Schism of 1054 between the Latin and the Greek Churches had not occurred yet, Bede would have seen the contemporary Emperor (a late Heraclian, mostly) invested with all the aura and authority of Constantine the Great.
The 2004 movie King Arthur uses some of Littleton and Malcor's information to rework the Arthur legend into something like real history. However, its use of it, and of other history, although meriting an A for effort, involves some confusions and anachronisms. In the movie, the Iazyges are called "Sarmatians," which they were, but the more general name obscures the unique experience of the Iazyges in being settled and assimilated as Roman soldiers. Indeed, that circumstance is ignored, as the movie shows the Sarmatians apparently still living out on the steppe (in yurts) and somehow still obliged in the 5th century to furnish draftees to the Roman army. The Romans, however, were never in any position to send press gangs out onto the steppe, and such a foray in the 5th century, through Germans and Huns, is unbelievable. Nor is there any reason why Sarmatians well beyond Roman borders should pay any attention to obligations assumed three centuries previously. But the plot of the movie requires that the Saramatians feel exiled during their service in Britain. Instead, the Iazyges, men, women, and children, would have all been settled in Britain; the veterans all would have been given Roman Citizenship as the reward of their service; and by the fourth century they would have felt as Roman and/or British as anyone. The yearning of Arthur's men to go home is thus a purely fictional device. That Arthur himself still bears the name of Artorius Castus, his ancestor, is a fictional device also, but actually a rather clever and not impossible one.
The background offered in the movie about Sarmatian service in the Roman army leaves out that this involved the war fought by Marcus Aurelius featured in the movie Gladiator. A tribute to Gladiator might have been made but isn't. Instead, we get a gross anachronism, as the shields of what would have been Marcus's army in 175 AD already bear the Chi-Rho symbol of Constantine's Christianity. This may have just been a matter of economy in the prop department, where all the shields were prepared for the 5th century army. However, even this was a mistake, since we know from the Notitia Dignitatum that there were a great many designs used on Roman shields in the Christian Empire, including, remarkably, the first attested instance of the Chinese swirling Yin-Yang symbol. Shields were unique and distinctive to the units.
Beyond this, almost all the history in the movie is confused. The Western Emperor is not even mentioned, and the Pope is portrayed as directing political and military events. This is what Mediaeval Popes wanted to do, but it has nothing to do with the 5th or 6th centuries, when the Popes had no such power and would not have imagined that they did. Actual Italian Romans are portrayed unpleasantly, which creates a distinction (and a conflict) that wouldn't have existed in Late Antiquity. In general, Romans were Romans -- the movie perpetuates the idea that "Rome" meant the City, when this limitation was long gone. More importantly, the Romans never deliberately withdrew from Britain, and certainly not as late or as callously as shown in the movie. The usurper Constantine (407-411) stripped Britain of legions in order to invade Gaul and seize the Throne. When he was defeated, Honorius had to inform the British that, with the Suevi, Vandals, and Alans raging across Gaul and Spain, the forces simply did not exist to re-garrison Britain. Since the battle of Badon Hill is supposed to have happened eighty to a hundred years later, there is a fair bit of history that the movie reduces, in effect, to a couple of days. Finally, we have Saxons so confused or foolish as to land in Britain north of Hadrian's Wall. This would not have done them much good (as is obvious in the movie) and was way, way out of their way. The Saxons, Angles, and Jutes all crossed the North Sea and landed well south of the Wall. Only Vikings from Norway would later show any interest in the future Scotland. Finally, an early sequence in the movie has Arthur venturing north of the Wall to retrieve a Roman settler. What is this guy doing there? And how could his estate survive, surrounded by hostile Picts, especially when he treats the locals with appalling cruelty? This doesn't pass minimal standards of credibility.
The latter device may have some historical connection. We are told that St. Patrick wrote a letter to Ceretic (or Coroticus), a Briton or Roman governing the local tribe of the British Damnonii, complaining about his practice of selling Irish captives as slaves to the Picts. Ceretic was the beginning of the British Kings of Strathclyde. This is the right era, since Ceretic is supposed to have reigned c.450's-470's, while St. Patrick died in 461, and the right place, north of Hadrian's Wall. If this is what the movie is referring to, it fails to distinguish between Britons, Picts, and Irish; and Ceretic is certainly in no need of being rescued by Romans for cruelty to those he ruled. The cruelty would have been to one set of pagans (i.e. the Irish in Scotland, the Scots, who were still pagan until converted by St. Columba [d.597], although St. Patrick was meanwhile converting the Irish in Ireland) being sold to another set of pagans (the Picts). Although St. Patrick's solicitude for the Irish anywhere is understandable, Christians in general did not worry about enslaving pagans -- which is why the word "slave" is derived from "Slav," who were enslaved long before they converted to Christianity.
The peculiar or anachronistic devices in the movie all serve to create dramatic tension and conflict, which is well within understandable poetic license. In this it is perhaps moderately successful, but some distortions seem gratuito
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