Julian (emperor)
Julian known as Julian the Apostate, was Roman Emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek. A member of the Constantinian dynasty, Julian was orphaned as a child, he was raised by the Gothic slave Mardonius, who had a profound influence on him, providing Julian with an excellent education. Julian became Caesar over the western provinces by order of Constantius II in 355, in this role he campaigned against the Alamanni and Franks. Most notable was his crushing victory over the Alamanni at the Battle of Argentoratum in 357, leading his 13,000 men against a Germanic army three times larger. In 360, Julian was proclaimed Augustus by his soldiers at Lutetia, sparking a civil war with Constantius. However, Constantius died before the two could face each other in battle, named Julian as his successor. In 363, Julian embarked on an ambitious campaign against the Sassanid Empire; the campaign was successful, securing a victory outside Ctesiphon. However, while campaigning into Persian territory, the Persians flooded the area behind him and Julian took a risky decision to withdraw up the valley of the Tigris River.
During the Battle of Samarra, Julian was mortally wounded under mysterious circumstances, leaving his army trapped in Persian territory. Following his death, the Roman forces were obliged to cede territory in order to escape, including the fortress city of Nisibis. Julian was a man of unusually complex character: he was "the military commander, the theosophist, the social reformer, the man of letters", he was the last non-Christian ruler of the Roman Empire, he believed that it was necessary to restore the Empire's ancient Roman values and traditions in order to save it from dissolution. He purged the top-heavy state bureaucracy, attempted to revive traditional Roman religious practices at the expense of Christianity, his attempt to build a Third Temple in Jerusalem was intended to harm Christianity rather than please Jews. Julian forbade the Christians from teaching and learning classical texts, his rejection of Christianity, his promotion of Neoplatonic Hellenism in its place, caused him to be remembered as Julian the Apostate by the church.
Flavius Claudius Julianus was born at Constantinople in May or June 332, the son of Julius Constantius, consul in 335, half-brother of the emperor Constantine, by his second wife, Basilina, a woman of Greek origin. Both of his parents were Christians. Julian's paternal grandparents were the emperor Constantius Chlorus and his second wife, Flavia Maximiana Theodora, his maternal grandfather was Julius Julianus, Praetorian Prefect of the East under the emperor Licinius from 315 to 324, consul suffectus in 325. The name of Julian's maternal grandmother is unknown. In the turmoil after the death of Constantine in 337, in order to establish himself and his brothers, Julian's zealous Arian cousin Constantius II appears to have led a massacre of most of Julian's close relatives. Constantius II ordered the murders of many descendants from the second marriage of Constantius Chlorus and Theodora, leaving only Constantius and his brothers Constantine II and Constans I, their cousins and Gallus, as the surviving males related to Emperor Constantine.
Constantius II, Constans I, Constantine II were proclaimed joint emperors, each ruling a portion of Roman territory. Julian and Gallus were excluded from public life, were guarded in their youth, given a Christian education, they were saved by their youth and at the urging of the Empress Eusebia. If Julian's writings are to be believed, Constantius would be tormented with guilt at the massacre of 337. Growing up in Bithynia, raised by his maternal grandmother, at the age of seven Julian was under the guardianship of Eusebius of Nicomedia, the semi-Arian Christian Bishop of Nicomedia, taught by Mardonius, a Gothic eunuch, about whom he wrote warmly. After Eusebius died in 342, both Julian and Gallus were exiled to the imperial estate of Macellum in Cappadocia. Here Julian met the Christian bishop George of Cappadocia, who lent him books from the classical tradition. At the age of 18, the exile was lifted and he dwelt in Constantinople and Nicomedia, he became a lector, a minor office in the Christian church, his writings show a detailed knowledge of the Bible acquired in his early life.
Julian's conversion from Christianity to paganism happened at around the age of 20. Looking back on his life in 362, Julian wrote that he had spent twenty years in the way of Christianity and twelve in the true way, i.e. the way of Helios. Julian began his study of Neoplatonism in Asia Minor in 351, at first under Aedesius, the philosopher, his Aedesius' student Eusebius of Myndus, it was from Eusebius that Julian learned of the teachings of Maximus of Ephesus, whom Eusebius criticized for his more mystical form of Neoplatonic theurgy. Eusebius related his meeting with Maximus, in which the theurgist invited him into the temple of Hecate and, chanting a hymn, caused a statue of the goddess to smile and laugh, her torches to ignite. Eusebius told Julian that he "must not marvel at any of these things as I marvel not, but rather believe that the thing of the highest importance is that purification of the soul, attained by reason." In spite of Eusebius' warnings regarding the "impostures of witchcraft and magic that cheat the senses" and "the works of conjurers who are insane men led astray into the exercise of earthly and material powers", Julian was intrigued, sought out Maximus as his new mentor.
According to the historian Eunapiu
Jovian (emperor)
Jovian was Roman Emperor from 363 to 364. Upon the death of emperor Julian the Apostate during his campaign against the Sassanid Empire, Jovian was hastily declared emperor by his soldiers, he sought peace with the Persians on humiliating terms and reestablished Christianity as the state church. His reign lasted only eight months. Jovian was born at Singidunum in 331 AD, the son of Varronianus, the commander of Constantius II's imperial bodyguards, he joined the guards and by 363 had risen to the same command that his father had once held. In this capacity, Jovian accompanied the Emperor Julian on the Mesopotamian campaign of the same year against Shapur II, the Sassanid king. After the Battle of Samarra, a small but decisive engagement, the Roman army was forced to retreat from the numerically superior Persian force. Julian, mortally wounded during the retreat, died on 26 June 363; the next day, after the aged Saturninius Secundus Salutius, praetorian prefect of the Orient, had declined the purple, the choice of the army fell upon Jovian.
His election caused considerable surprise: Ammianus Marcellinus suggests that he was wrongly identified with another Jovianus, chief notary, whose name had been put forward, or that during the acclamations the soldiers mistook the name Jovianus for Julianus, imagined that the latter had recovered from his illness. An easy gaiety and indulgent disposition was the chief recommendation of the new emperor. Jovian, a Christian, reestablished Christianity as the state church, ending the brief revival of paganism under his predecessor. Upon arriving at Antioch, he revoked the edicts of Julian against Christians; the Labarum of Constantine the Great again became the standard of the army. He issued an edict of toleration, to the effect that, while the exercise of magical rites would be punished, his subjects should enjoy full liberty of conscience. In 363, however, he issued an edict ordering the Library of Antioch to be burnt down, another on 11 September subjecting those who worshiped ancestral gods to the death penalty.
He extended the same punishment on 23 December to participation in any pagan ceremony. Jovian entertained a great regard for Athanasius, whom he reinstated on the archiepiscopal throne, desiring him to draw up a statement of the orthodox faith. However, Jovian did not display the single-minded zeal of his Flavian predecessors in the cause of either heresy or orthodoxy, but was content to recommend moderation to the contending factions in the ongoing Arian controversy. In Syriac literature, Jovian became the hero of a Christian romance. In part due to his influence, Christianity remained the dominant religion of both the Western and Eastern Roman Empires, until the Fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. On the morning of his accession, Jovian resumed the retreat begun by Julian. Though harassed by the Persians, the army succeeded in reaching the city of Dura on the banks of the Tigris. There the army came to a halt; when the attempt to bridge the river failed, he was forced to sue for a peace treaty on humiliating terms.
According to Edward Gibbon, there were just sufficient provisions in the camp to last the army until the friendly province of Corduene, 100 miles to the north, if its movements were prompt and decisive. But Jovian delayed, the supplies ran out while he was engaged in the negotiations, forcing him to comply with Shapur II's harsh terms. In exchange for an unhindered retreat to his own territory, he agreed to withdraw from the five Roman provinces east of the Tigris, conquered by Galerius in 298, that Diocletian had annexed, to allow the Persians to occupy the fortresses of Nisibis, Castra Maurorum and Singara; the Romans surrendered their interests in the Kingdom of Armenia to the Persians. The Christian king of Armenia, Arsaces II, was to stay neutral in future conflicts between the two empires and was forced to cede part of his kingdom to Shapur; the treaty was seen as a disgrace and Jovian lost popularity. The clamors and insults of the citizenry of Antioch, who were without security on an exposed frontier, impelled him to hasten his departure from that city.
After arriving at Antioch, Jovian decided to rush to Constantinople to consolidate his political position there, he delayed only to conduct the funeral of Julian, honorably interred at Tarsus. While en route from there to the capital, after having received the allegiance of the western representatives at Tyana, Jovian was found dead in bed in his tent at Dadastana, halfway between Ancyra and Nicaea, his death was attributed to either a surfeit of mushrooms and wine, or the poisonous carbon monoxide fumes of a charcoal warming fire. However, the historian Ammianus Marcellinus, a near-contemporary, suggests his death was suspicious and was strangely uninvestigated. Gibbon, declines to credit the suspicion. Jovian was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, along with his Christian predecessors. List of Byzantine emperors Banchich, Thomas, "Jovian", De Imperatoribus Romanis. Ammianus Marcellinus, xxv. 5–10 J. P. de la Bleterie, Histoire de Jovien Gibbon and Fall, chapters xxiv. xxv.
Gibbon, Edward, 1737–1794. The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. V. 2, pp. 517 – 529. G. Hoffmann, Julianus der Abtrünnige, 1880 J. Wordsworth in Smith and Wace's Dictionary of Christian Biography H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, volume ii. A. de Broglie, L'Église et l'empire romain au IVe siècle
Cyzicus
Cyzicus was an ancient town of Mysia in Anatolia in the current Balıkesir Province of Turkey. It was located on the shoreward side of the present Kapıdağ Peninsula, a tombolo, said to have been an island in the Sea of Marmara only to be connected to the mainland in historic times either by artificial means or an earthquake; the site of Cyzicus, located on the Erdek and Bandırma roads, is protected by Turkey's Ministry of Culture. The city was said to have been founded by Pelasgians from Thessaly, according to tradition at the coming of the Argonauts. Alcibiades defeated the Lacedaemonians there. Eudoxus of Cnidus had a school at Cyzicus and went with his pupils to Athens, visiting Plato, returned to Cyzicus, where he died 355 B. C; the era of Olympiads in Cyzicus was reckoned from 135 or 139. Owing to its advantageous position it speedily acquired commercial importance, the gold staters of Cyzicus were a staple currency in the ancient world till they were superseded by those of Philip of Macedon.
Its unique and characteristic coin, the cyzicenus, was worth 28 drachmae. During the Peloponnesian War Cyzicus was subject to the Lacedaemonians alternately. In the naval Battle of Cyzicus in 410 during the Peloponnesian War, an Athenian fleet routed and destroyed a Spartan fleet. At the peace of Antalcidas, like the other Greek cities in Asia, it was made over to Persia. Alexander the Great captured it from the Persians in 334 BC and was claimed to be responsible for the land bridge connecting the island to the mainland; the history of the town in Hellenistic times is connected with that of the Attalids of Pergamon, with whose extinction it came into direct relations with Rome. Cyzicus was held for the Romans against King Mithridates VI of Pontus who besieged it with 300,000 men in 74 BC, but it withstood him stoutly, the siege was raised by Lucullus: the loyalty of the city was rewarded by an extension of territory and other privileges; the Romans recognized its municipal independence. Cyzicus was the leading city of Northern Mysia as far as Troas.
Under Tiberius, it was incorporated into the Roman Empire but remained the capital of Mysia and became one of the great cities of the ancient world. Cyzicus was captured temporarily by the Arabs led by Muawiyah I in AD 675, it appears to have been ruined by a series of earthquakes beginning in 443, with the last in 1063. Although its population was transferred to Artake before the 13th century when the peninsula was occupied by the Crusaders, in 1324 the metropolitan of Cyzicus was one of three sees in Anatolia, able to contribute a temporary annual subsidy to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Following its conquest by the Ottomans it underwent hard times. From a point between 1370 and 1372 until 1387, the metropolitan was empty. In the 14th century, the sees of Chalcedon and certain patriarchal possessions in Bithynia and Hellespont were bestowed on the metropolitan of Cyzicus. In the Ottoman era, it was part of the kaza of Erdek in the province of Brusa. Cyzicus, as capital of the Roman province of Hellespontus, was its ecclesiastical metropolitan.
In the Notitiae Episcopatuum of Pseudo-Epiphanius, composed in about 640, Cyzicus had 12 suffragan sees. The province included two autocephalous archiepiscopal sees: Parium and Proconnesus. Cyzicus had a catalogue of bishops beginning with the 1st century. A more complete list is found in Nicodemos, in the Greek "Office of St. Emilian", 34–36, which has eighty-five names. Of particular importance are the famous Arian theologian Eunomius of Cyzicus. Another saint who came from Cyzicus, Saint Tryphaena of Cyzicus, is the patron saint of the city. Gelasius, a historian of Arianism, who wrote about 475, was born at Cyzicus. George Kleidas, Metropolitan of Cyzicus in ca. 1253–61 Theodore Skoutariotes, Metropolitan of Cyzicus in ca. 1277 Daniel Glykys, Metropolitan of Cyzicus in 1285–89 Methodius, Metropolitan of Cyzicus from 1289 Niphon I, Patriarch of Constantinople in 1310–14, was Metropolitan of Cyzicus in 1303–10 Athanasios, Metropolitan of Cyzicus in 1324–47 Theodoretos, proedros of Cyzicus in 1370–72 Sebasteianos, Metropolitan of Cyzicus in 1381–86 Matthew I, Patriarch of Constantinople in 1397–1410, was Metropolitan of Cyzicus in 1387–97 Theognostos, Metropolitan of Cyzicus in 1399–1405 Makarios, Metropolitan of Cyzicus in 1409 Metrophanes II, Patriarch of Constantinople in 1440–43, was Metropolitan of Cyzicus in 1436–40 Cyril IV, Patriarch of Constantinople in 1711–13, was Metropolitan of Cyzicus before thatCyzicus remained a metropolitan see of the Greek Orthodox Church until the 1923 Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations emptied it of Greek Orthodox faithful, whether they spoke Greek or Turkish.
The last bishop of the see died in 1932. Today it is a titular metropolis of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Since 1885, the Catholic Church lists Cyzicus as a titular see. of the highest rank, but v
Constantius II
Constantius II was Roman Emperor from 337 to 361. His reign saw constant warfare on the borders against the Sasanian Empire and Germanic peoples, while internally the Roman Empire went through repeated civil wars and usurpations, culminating in Constantius' overthrow as emperor by his cousin Julian, his religious policies inflamed domestic conflicts. The second son of Constantine I and Fausta, Constantius was made Caesar by his father in 324, he led the Roman army in war against the Sasanian Empire in 336. A year Constantine I died, Constantius became Augustus with his brothers Constantine II and Constans, he promptly oversaw the massacre of eight of his relatives. The brothers divided the empire with Constantius receiving the eastern provinces. In 340, his brothers Constantine and Constans clashed over the western provinces of the empire; the resulting conflict Constans as ruler of the west. The war against the Sasanians continued, with Constantius losing a major battle at Singara in 344. In 350, Constans was assassinated in 350 by the usurper Magnentius.
Unwilling to accept Magnentius as co-ruler, Constantius waged a civil war against the usurper, defeating him at the battles of Mursa Major in 351 and Mons Seleucus in 353. Magnentius committed suicide after the latter battle, leaving Constantius as sole ruler of the empire. In 351, Constantius elevated his cousin Constantius Gallus to the subordinate rank of Caesar to rule in the east, but had him executed three years after receiving scathing reports of his violent and corrupt nature. Shortly thereafter, in 355, Constantius promoted his last surviving cousin, Gallus' younger half-brother Julian, to the rank of Caesar; as emperor, Constantius promoted Arian Christianity, persecuted pagans by banning sacrifices and closing pagan temples and issued laws discriminating against Jews. His military campaigns against Germanic tribes were successful: he defeated the Alamanni in 354 and campaigned across the Danube against the Quadi and Sarmatians in 357; the war against the Sasanians, in a lull since 350, erupted with renewed intensity in 359 and Constantius traveled to the east in 360 to restore stability after the loss of several border fortresses to the Sasanians.
However, Julian claimed the rank of Augustus in 360, leading to war between the two after Constantius' attempts to convince Julian to back down failed. No battle was fought, as Constantius became ill and died of fever on 3 November 361 in Mopsuestia, naming Julian as his rightful successor before his death. Constantius was born in 317 at Pannonia, he was the third son of Constantine the Great, second by his second wife Fausta, the daughter of Maximian. Constantius was made Caesar by his father on 13 November 324. In 336, religious unrest in Armenia and tense relations between Constantine and king Shapur II caused war to break out between Rome and Sassanid Persia. Though he made initial preparations for the war, Constantine fell ill and sent Constantius east to take command of the eastern frontier. Before Constantius arrived, the Persian general Narses, the king's brother, overran Mesopotamia and captured Amida. Constantius promptly attacked Narses, after suffering minor setbacks defeated and killed Narses at the Battle of Narasara.
Constantius captured Amida and initiated a major refortification of the city, enhancing the city's circuit walls and constructing large towers. He built a new stronghold in the hinterland nearby, naming it Antinopolis. In early 337, Constantius hurried to Constantinople after receiving news that his father was near death. After Constantine died, Constantius buried him with lavish ceremony in the Church of the Holy Apostles. Soon after his father's death Constantius ordered a massacre of his relatives descended from the second marriage of his paternal grandfather Constantius Chlorus, though the details are unclear. Eutropius, writing between 350 and 370, states that Constantius sanctioned “the act, rather than commanding it”; the massacre killed two of Constantius' uncles and six of his cousins, including Hannibalianus and Dalmatius, rulers of Pontus and Moesia respectively. The massacre left Constantius, his older brother Constantine II, his younger brother Constans, three cousins Gallus and Nepotianus as the only surviving male relatives of Constantine the Great.
Soon after, Constantius met his brothers in Pannonia at Sirmium to formalize the partition of the empire. Constantius received the eastern provinces, including Constantinople, Asia Minor, Syria and Cyrenaica. Constantius hurried east to Antioch to resume the war with Persia. While Constantius was away from the eastern frontier in early 337, King Shapur II assembled a large army, which included war elephants, launched an attack on Roman territory, laying waste to Mesopotamia and putting the city of Nisibis under siege. Despite initial success, Shapur lifted his siege after his army missed an opportunity to exploit a collapsed wall; when Constantius learned of Shapur's withdrawal from Roman territory, he prepared his army for a counter-attack. Constantius defended the eastern border against invasions by the aggressive Sassanid Empire under Shapur; these conflicts were limited to Sassanid sieges of the major fortresses of Roman Mesopotamia, including Nisibis and Amida. Although Shapur seems to have been vict
Cappadocia
Cappadocia is a historical region in Central Anatolia in the Nevşehir, Kayseri, Kırşehir, Niğde Provinces in Turkey. According to Herodotus, in the time of the Ionian Revolt, the Cappadocians were reported as occupying a region from Mount Taurus to the vicinity of the Euxine. Cappadocia, in this sense, was bounded in the south by the chain of the Taurus Mountains that separate it from Cilicia, to the east by the upper Euphrates, to the north by Pontus, to the west by Lycaonia and eastern Galatia; the name, traditionally used in Christian sources throughout history, continues in use as an international tourism concept to define a region of exceptional natural wonders, in particular characterized by fairy chimneys and a unique historical and cultural heritage. The earliest record of the name of Cappadocia dates from the late 6th century BC, when it appears in the trilingual inscriptions of two early Achaemenid kings, Darius I and Xerxes, as one of the countries of the Persian Empire. In these lists of countries, the Old Persian name is Haspaduya, which according to some researchers is derived from Iranian Huw-aspa-dahyu- "the land/country of beautiful horses".
Others proposed that Kat-patuka came from the Luwian language, meaning "Low Country". Subsequent research suggests that the adverb katta meaning'down, below' is Hittite, while its Luwian equivalent is zanta; therefore the recent modification of this proposal operates with the Hittite katta peda- "place below" as a starting point for the development of the toponym Cappadocia. Herodotus tells us that the name of the Cappadocians was applied to them by the Persians, while they were termed by the Greeks "Syrians" or "White Syrians" Leucosyri. One of the Cappadocian tribes he mentions is the Moschoi, associated by Flavius Josephus with the biblical figure Meshech, son of Japheth: "and the Mosocheni were founded by Mosoch. AotJ I:6. Cappadocia appears in the biblical account given in the book of Acts 2:9; the Cappadocians were named as one group hearing the Gospel account from Galileans in their own language on the day of Pentecost shortly after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Acts 2:5 seems to suggest that the Cappadocians in this account were "God-fearing Jews".
See Acts of the Apostles. The region is mentioned in the Jewish Mishnah, in Ketubot 13:11. Under the kings of the Persian Empire, the Cappadocians were divided into two satrapies, or governments, with one comprising the central and inland portion, to which the name of Cappadocia continued to be applied by Greek geographers, while the other was called Pontus; this division had come about before the time of Xenophon. As after the fall of the Persian government the two provinces continued to be separate, the distinction was perpetuated, the name Cappadocia came to be restricted to the inland province, which alone will be the focus of this article; the kingdom of Cappadocia still existed in the time of Strabo as a nominally independent state. Cilicia was the name given to the district in which Caesarea, the capital of the whole country, was situated; the only two cities of Cappadocia considered by Strabo to deserve that appellation were Caesarea and Tyana, not far from the foot of the Taurus. Cappadocia lies in the heartland of what is now Turkey.
The relief consists of a high plateau over 1000 m in altitude, pierced by volcanic peaks, with Mount Erciyes near Kayseri being the tallest at 3916 m. The boundaries of historical Cappadocia are vague towards the west. To the south, the Taurus Mountains form the boundary with Cilicia and separate Cappadocia from the Mediterranean Sea. To the west, Cappadocia is bounded by the historical regions of Lycaonia to the southwest, Galatia to the northwest. Due to its inland location and high altitude, Cappadocia has a markedly continental climate, with hot dry summers and cold snowy winters. Rainfall is sparse and the region is semi-arid. Cappadocia was known as Hatti in the late Bronze Age, was the homeland of the Hittite power centred at Hattusa. After the fall of the Hittite Empire, with the decline of the Syro-Cappadocians after their defeat by the Lydian king Croesus in the 6th century, Cappadocia was ruled by a sort of feudal aristocracy, dwelling in strong castles and keeping the peasants in a servile condition, which made them apt to foreign slavery.
It was included in the third Persian satrapy in the division established by Darius but continued to be governed by rulers of its own, none supreme over the whole country and all more or less tributaries of the Great King. After ending the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great tried to rule the area through one of his military commanders, but Ariarathes, a Persian aristocrat, somehow became king of the Cappadocians. As Ariarathes I, he was a successful ruler, he extended the borders of the Cappadocian Kingdom as far as to the Black Sea; the kingdom of Cappadocia lived in peace until the death of Alexander. The previous empire was divided into many parts, Cappadocia fell to Eumenes, his claims were made good in 322 BC by the regent Perdiccas. Persian colonists in the Cappadocian kingdom, cut off from their co-religionists in Iran proper, continued to practice Zoroastrianism. Stra
Halmyris
Halmyris was a Roman and Byzantine fort and naval port, located 2.5 kilometers west of the village of Murighiol at the mouth of the Danube Delta in Romania. It is locally known as the site where the bodies of two Christian saints and Astion, were uncovered between 2001 and 2004. Despite the creation of several Greek colonies along the Romanian Black Sea coast during the 7th century BC, no corresponding Greek structural remains have been found nearby Halmyris; the region was inhabited during the Second Iron Age by the Getae or Dacians as is evident by the discovery of several cremation burials within a possible necropolis that dates to the 4th-2nd centuries BC. While the first Roman occupation of the site seems to have been in the form of a turf-and-timber fort constructed during the Flavian period, the first stone castrum at Halmyris was built during the reign of the emperor Trajan. Although the original layout of the Trajanic fort is covered by reconstructive phases, the plan seems to have been indicative of the'typical' 2nd century layout of a Roman fort, composed of a rectangular defensive wall, rectangular towers and a gate in the middle of each of the walls.
The placement of the fort was strategically deliberate as it lay not only along the course of the Danube River but at the mouth of the Black Sea. Early connections to the Roman fleet and its maritime activities at Halmyris are confirmed from epigraphic evidence mentioning the existence of a'mariner's village' or vicus classicorum. However, a significant alteration of the defenses took place during the Tetrarchy period; the new layout of the fort walls consisted of an irregular polygon bolstered by 15 towers and at least two well-defended gateways in the north and the west. Structures found within the fort include numerous barracks, a private thermae or bathhouse and a basilica. However, in the winter of 384/5, the Danube froze, allowing the foreign tribes to the north to cross and sack Halmyris. A series of earthquakes in the 4th century and that altered the course of the Danube led to the silting up of Halmyris' harbor and decreased its economic and strategic importance; the final period of occupation seems to correspond with the reconstruction of the fort by the emperor Justinian which included the building of a monumental entrance way in the northeast wall of the fort.
Additionally, Halmyris became the site of one of the major bishoprics in the province as well as being named as one of the fifteen most important towns in the province of Scythia. Halmyris was the most easterly point of the Danubian border in Roman times and served as a supply centre for the fleet. During the late Roman period two units of the military fleet—Classis in Plateypegiis and Musculi Schytici may have been hosted by this city; as for religious life, we know that in 290 AD, during the persecutions ordered by Diocletian, Saint Epictetus and Astion suffered martyrdom at Halmyris. Halmyris served as a depot for supplies and cultural exchange in the region for 1,100 years, it was occupied from the Iron Age to the Byzantine period. The original fort was made of timber and turf, but as the fort gained importance and a regular garrison was established along the Danube, the fort was rebuilt in stone. Early in the fort's history, the Goths and Huns from the North crossed the Danube and conquered the fort.
It was re-captured by the Romans. In the early 4th century, the Emperor Constantine added a basilica. A series of earthquakes altered the course of the Danube and the fort became more removed from the river. Halmyris lost its importance and was abandoned; the fort is being excavated by Dr. Mihail Zahariade and Dr. John Karavas, with the Archaeology at Halmyris international volunteer program. Current areas of excavation include the military barracks, northwestern towers and harbor installations. Histria List of ancient towns in Scythia Minor List of castra Peuce Island The Archeological Museum, Romania http://www.halmyris.org/
Public domain
The public domain consists of all the creative works to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable; the works of William Shakespeare and Beethoven, most early silent films, are in the public domain either by virtue of their having been created before copyright existed, or by their copyright term having expired. Some works are not covered by copyright, are therefore in the public domain—among them the formulae of Newtonian physics, cooking recipes, all computer software created prior to 1974. Other works are dedicated by their authors to the public domain; the term public domain is not applied to situations where the creator of a work retains residual rights, in which case use of the work is referred to as "under license" or "with permission". As rights vary by country and jurisdiction, a work may be subject to rights in one country and be in the public domain in another; some rights depend on registrations on a country-by-country basis, the absence of registration in a particular country, if required, gives rise to public-domain status for a work in that country.
The term public domain may be interchangeably used with other imprecise or undefined terms such as the "public sphere" or "commons", including concepts such as the "commons of the mind", the "intellectual commons", the "information commons". Although the term "domain" did not come into use until the mid-18th century, the concept "can be traced back to the ancient Roman Law, as a preset system included in the property right system." The Romans had a large proprietary rights system where they defined "many things that cannot be owned" as res nullius, res communes, res publicae and res universitatis. The term res nullius was defined as things not yet appropriated; the term res communes was defined as "things that could be enjoyed by mankind, such as air and ocean." The term res publicae referred to things that were shared by all citizens, the term res universitatis meant things that were owned by the municipalities of Rome. When looking at it from a historical perspective, one could say the construction of the idea of "public domain" sprouted from the concepts of res communes, res publicae, res universitatis in early Roman law.
When the first early copyright law was first established in Britain with the Statute of Anne in 1710, public domain did not appear. However, similar concepts were developed by French jurists in the 18th century. Instead of "public domain", they used terms such as publici juris or propriété publique to describe works that were not covered by copyright law; the phrase "fall in the public domain" can be traced to mid-19th century France to describe the end of copyright term. The French poet Alfred de Vigny equated the expiration of copyright with a work falling "into the sink hole of public domain" and if the public domain receives any attention from intellectual property lawyers it is still treated as little more than that, left when intellectual property rights, such as copyright and trademarks, expire or are abandoned. In this historical context Paul Torremans describes copyright as a, "little coral reef of private right jutting up from the ocean of the public domain." Copyright law differs by country, the American legal scholar Pamela Samuelson has described the public domain as being "different sizes at different times in different countries".
Definitions of the boundaries of the public domain in relation to copyright, or intellectual property more regard the public domain as a negative space. According to James Boyle this definition underlines common usage of the term public domain and equates the public domain to public property and works in copyright to private property. However, the usage of the term public domain can be more granular, including for example uses of works in copyright permitted by copyright exceptions; such a definition regards work in copyright as private property subject to fair-use rights and limitation on ownership. A conceptual definition comes from Lange, who focused on what the public domain should be: "it should be a place of sanctuary for individual creative expression, a sanctuary conferring affirmative protection against the forces of private appropriation that threatened such expression". Patterson and Lindberg described the public domain not as a "territory", but rather as a concept: "here are certain materials – the air we breathe, rain, life, thoughts, ideas, numbers – not subject to private ownership.
The materials that compose our cultural heritage must be free for all living to use no less than matter necessary for biological survival." The term public domain may be interchangeably used with other imprecise or undefined terms such as the "public sphere" or "commons", including concepts such as the "commons of the mind", the "intellectual commons", the "information commons". A public-domain book is a book with no copyright, a book, created without a license, or a book where its copyrights expired or have been forfeited. In most countries the term of protection of copyright lasts until January first, 70 years after the death of the latest living author; the longest copyright term is in Mexico, which has life plus 100 years for all deaths since July 1928. A notable exception is the United States, where every book and tale published prior to 1924 is in the public domain.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Eunomius". Encyclopædia Britannica. 9 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 890.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the