1.
Pope Theodoros I of Alexandria
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Pope Theodoros I of Alexandria, also known as St. Theodorus, was the 45th Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark. He was a monk in a monastery near Mariout, which was known as the monastery of Tanboura, Coptic literature states that Yoannis was inspired by the Holy Spirit that his disciple Theodoros would one day become a Pope and he told those who were in authority. It is said that Theodoros struggled in his worship, and was perfect in his humility and he was selected to become the Pope of Alexandria. During his papacy he shepherded his flock by reading and preaching to his people, especially on Sundays and he completed 12 years of papacy and died in peace. He is also known as Theodosius II in Coptic history
2.
Eastern Roman Emperor
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This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Emperors listed below up to Theodosius I in 395 were sole or joint rulers of the entire Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire was the direct legal continuation of the eastern half of the Roman Empire following the division of the Roman Empire in 395. All Byzantine emperors considered themselves to be the rightful Roman emperor in direct succession from Augustus, the title of all Emperors preceding Heraclius was officially Augustus, although other titles such as Dominus were also used. Their names were preceded by Imperator Caesar and followed by Augustus, following Heraclius, the title commonly became the Greek Basileus, which had formerly meant sovereign but was then used in place of Augustus. Following the establishment of the rival Holy Roman Empire in Western Europe, in later centuries, the Emperor could be referred to by Western Christians as the Emperor of the Greeks. Towards the end of the Empire, the standard formula of the Byzantine ruler was in Christ, Emperor. For Roman emperors before Constantine I, see List of Roman emperors, family tree of the Byzantine emperors List of Roman emperors List of Roman usurpers List of Byzantine usurpers List of Roman and Byzantine empresses
3.
Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
4.
Arcadius
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Arcadius was Eastern Roman Emperor from 383 to 408. He was the eldest son of Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, a weak ruler, his reign was dominated by a series of powerful ministers and by his wife, Aelia Eudoxia. Arcadius was born in Hispania, the son of Theodosius I and Aelia Flaccilla, and brother of Honorius. His father declared him an Augustus and co-ruler for the Eastern half of the Empire in January 383 and his younger brother was also declared Augustus in 393, for the Western half. As emperors, Honorius was under the control of the Romanized Vandal magister militum Flavius Stilicho while Arcadius was dominated by one of his ministers, Arcadius new advisor, the eunuch Eutropius, simply took Rufinus place as the power behind the Eastern imperial throne. Arcadius was also dominated by his wife Aelia Eudoxia, who convinced her husband to dismiss Eutropius and that same year, on 13 July, Arcadius issued an edict ordering that all remaining non-Christian temples should be immediately demolished. Eudoxias influence was strongly opposed by John Chrysostom, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Eudoxia used her influence to have Chrysostom deposed in 404, but she died later that year. Eudoxia gave to Arcadius four children, three daughters, Pulcheria, Arcadia and Marina, and one son, Theodosius, the future Emperor Theodosius II. Arcadius was dominated for the rest of his rule by Anthemius, the Praetorian Prefect, Arcadius himself was more concerned with appearing to be a pious Christian than he was with political or military matters, and he died, only nominally in control of his Empire, in 408. The episode has been interpreted as a paroxysm of anti-barbarian reaction that served to stabilize the East. Synesius De regno, which claims to be addressed to Arcadius himself, a new forum was built in the name of Arcadius, on the seventh hill of Constantinople, the Xērolophos, in which a column was begun to commemorate his victory over Gainas. The Pentelic marble portrait head of Arcadius was discovered in Istanbul close to the Forum Tauri, in June 1949, the neck was designed to be inserted in a torso, but no statue, base or inscription was found. The diadem is a fillet with rows of pearls along its edges, flavia List of Byzantine emperors A
5.
Anthemius (praetorian prefect)
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Flavius Anthemius was a high-ranking official of the late Roman Empire. Anthemius was the grandson of Flavius Philippus, praetorian prefect of the East in 346 and he rose to prominence during the reign of Arcadius, when he was appointed comes sacrarum largitionum around or in 400 and later magister officiorum in 404. He occupied the position during the disturbances which followed John Chrysostoms final deposition from the patriarchate. Johns enemies demanded troops from him with which to disperse the crowd, at first he refused, but then yielded, declaring that they were responsible for the consequences. On April 28,406, he was elevated to the rank of patricius and this brought him into conflict with the all-powerful Stilicho, who desired to take back the prefecture of Illyricum and subordinate the Eastern Empire to the West. Furthermore, Anthemius passed a number of new laws against paganism, Judaism, when Arcadius died in 408, his son and successor Theodosius II was a child of seven years. Anthemius assumed the regency, and showed remarkable talent and he initiated a new peace treaty with Sassanid Persia, and, thanks also to Stilichos death, was able to restore harmony in the relations of the Imperial courts of Constantinople and Ravenna. He strengthened the fleet of the Danube, which protected the provinces of Moesia and Scythia and he furthermore successfully regulated the grain supply of Constantinople, which came chiefly from Egypt and was under the authority of the urban prefect. In the past, shortages had occurred due to the lack of ships, resulting in famines. He also took measures to ensure the collection of taxes. The one work of Anthemius that is standing today is the main wall of the Theodosian Walls.5 kilometers between the Sea of Marmara and the suburb of Blachernae near the Golden Horn. The wall was finished in 413 and almost doubled the size of the city, a feat for which Bury called him in a sense, the second founder of Constantinople. In 414, Anthemius suddenly disappeared from the scene, and the regency was assumed by the Augusta Pulcheria and his fate is unknown, but through his daughters marriage to magister militum Procopius, he became grandfather to the later Western Emperor Anthemius. He was also the father of Anthemius Isidorus, Consul in 436, John Bagnell Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire Vol. I, Macmillan & Co. Ltd.1923 Herbermann, Charles, ed. Anthemius
6.
Pulcheria
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St. Aelia Pulcheria /ˈiːliə pʌlˈkɪriə/ was the second child of Eastern Roman Emperor Arcadius and Empress Aelia Eudoxia. In 415, the fifteen-year old Pulcheria took over the reigns of government as the guardian of her younger brother Theodosius II and was also proclaimed Augusta, Pulcheria had significant, though changing, political power during her brothers reign. When Theodosius II died on 26 July 450, Pulcheria provided a successor by marrying Marcian on 25 November 450 and she died three years later, in July 453. The Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church subsequently recognized her as a saint, Pulcheria was born into the royal House of Theodosius, a dynasty of the later Roman Empire, ruling in Constantinople. Her parents were Eastern Roman Emperor Arcadius and Empress Aelia Eudoxia, Pulcherias older sister, Flaccilla, was born in 397 but probably died young. Her younger siblings were Arcadia, Theodosius II, the future emperor, John declared that these proceedings reflected dishonor on the hurch. Also according to Sozomen, Chrysostom had condemned the Empress for her style in his sermons. Later in life, Pulcheria returned the relics of St. John Chrysostom and installed them for the Church, Eudoxia died in 404, and Emperor Arcadius in 408. They left behind four children, including Theodosius II, then 7 years of age, who had been his fathers nominal co-Emperor since 402. Two praetorian prefects named Anthemius and Antiochus at first handled government affairs, at the same time, Pulcheria made a vow of virginity, probably to keep off pontential suitors. After this, the imperial palace assumed a monastic tone in comparison with her mothers palace. and pass their days, rituals within the imperial palace included chanting and reciting passages of sacred scripture and fasting twice per week. The sisters relinquished luxurious jewelry and apparel which most women of the court wore. Pulcheria also provided all the necessary for Theodosius to be a successful emperor when he would come of age. In fact it can be said without exaggeration that Pulcheria gave the identity to her brothers reign, by no means must he yield to loud laughter. Not only did Pulcheria train her brother in the duties and customs of imperial office, according to many historians, upon coming of age to rule as sole Emperor, Theodosius ignored the teachings of his sister. He was by nature kind, affable, easily led, not only was he foolishly kind, he was careless, and often he was to neglect his duty in the administration of his Empire. The lack of determined leadership by Theodosius motivated Pulcheria to assume greater authority, at the time Pulcheria proclaimed herself guardian of her brother, in an act of piety she also took a vow of virginity, and her sisters followed her example. Sozomen explains that, She devoted her virginity to God, to avoid cause of scandal and opportunities for intrigue, she permitted no man to enter her palace
7.
Marcian
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Marcian was Eastern Roman Emperor from 450 to 457. Marcians rule marked a recovery of the Eastern Empire, which the Emperor protected from external menaces, the Eastern Orthodox Church recognizes Marcian as a saint for his role in convoking the Council of Chalcedon. Marcian was born in 392 in Illyricum or Thracia, the son of a soldier, he spent his early life as an obscure soldier, member of a military unit located at Philippopolis. Marcian was dispatched with his unit for a war against the Sassanids, after recovering from his illness, he went to Constantinople, where he served for fifteen years as domesticus under the generals Ardaburius and Aspar. Aware that he could never capture the capital of Constantinople, Attila turned to the west and waged his famous campaigns in Gaul 451. Marcian reformed the finances, checked extravagance, and repopulated the devastated districts and he repelled attacks upon Syria and Egypt in 452, and quelled disturbances on the Armenian frontier in 456. The other notable event of his reign is the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Marcian generally ignored the affairs of the Western Roman Empire, leaving that tottering half of the empire to its fate. He did nothing to aid the west during Attilas campaigns, and, living up to his promise, shortly before Attilas death in 453, conflict had begun again between him and Marcian. However, the powerful Hun king died before all-out war broke out, in a dream, Marcian claimed he saw Attilas bow broken before him, and a few days later, he got word that his great enemy was dead. Marcian died on 27 January 457 of a disease, possibly gangrene and he was buried in the church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, together with Pulcheria. Despite his short reign and his writing off of the west Marcian is considered one of the best of the early Eastern Roman Emperors, the Eastern Orthodox Church recognizes him and his wife Pulcheria as saints, with their feast day on 17 February. Marcia Euphemia was the known daughter of Marcian, and she was married to Anthemius. The identity of her mother is unknown, Pulcheria had taken a religious vow of chastity. The second marriage was a political alliance, establishing Marcian as a member of the Theodosian dynasty by marriage. The marriage of Marcian to Pulcheria was never consummated, and consequently Euphemia never had younger half-siblings, Marcian was played by the Hollywood star Jeff Chandler in the film Sign of the Pagan. Flavia List of Byzantine emperors This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. Arnold Hugh Martin Jones, Marcianus 8, The Prosopography of the later Roman empire, A. D. 260–395, Volume 1, Cambridge University Press,1987, ISBN 0-521-20159-4, imperial unity and Christian divisions, The Church 450-680 A. D. Crestwood, NY, St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, Marcian at the DIR Media related to Marcian at Wikimedia Commons Marcian
8.
Aelia Eudocia
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Eudocia lived in a world where Greek paganism and Christianity existed side-by-side with both pagans and non-Orthodox Christians being persecuted. Aelia Eudocia was born circa 400 AD in Athens into a family of Greek descent and her father, a Greek philosopher named Leontius, taught rhetoric at the Academy of Athens, where people from all over the Mediterranean came to either teach or learn. Eudocias given name was Athenais, chosen by her parents in honour of the citys protector and her father was rich and had a magnificent house on the Acropolis with a large courtyard in which young Athenais frequently played as a child. When Athenais was 12 years old, her mother died and she became her fathers comfort, taking on the responsibilities of household chores, raising her siblings and she had two brothers, Gessius and Valerius, who would later receive honours at court from their sister and brother-in-law. In return for her activities, her father spent time giving her a thorough training in rhetoric, literature. He taught her the Socratic virtue of knowledge of moderation, and she had a gift for memorisation, and easily learned the poetry of Homer and Pindar, which her father would recite to her. Both as a teacher and a model, he had a great impact on her, prepared her for her destiny. When he died in 420, she was devastated, in his will, he left all his property to her brothers, with only 100 coins reserved for her, saying that ufficient for her is her destiny, which will be the greatest of any woman. Athenais had been her fathers confidante and had expected more than this meager 100-coin inheritance and she begged her brothers to be fair and give her an equal share of their fathers property, but they refused. Legend has it that when Theodosius II was 20 years old and he talked to his sister Pulcheria, who began to search for a maiden fit for her brother, that was either patrician or imperial blood. His longtime childhood friend, Paulinus, also helped Theodosius in his search, the Emperors search had begun fortuitously at the same time that Athenais had arrived in Constantinople. Athenais had been raised pagan, and upon her marriage to Theodosius II converted to Christianity and was renamed Eudocia and they were married on June 7,421 and there were reports that Theodosius celebrated his wedding with chariot races in the hippodrome. Her brothers, who had rejected her after their fathers death, however, instead of punishing them, Eudocia called them back to Constantinople, and Theodosius rewarded them. The emperor made Gessius praetorian prefect of Illyricum and made Valerius magister officiorum, both Gessius and Valerius were rewarded because Eudocia believed that their mistreatment of her was part of her destiny. He also honoured his best friend, Paulinus with the title of magister officiorum, the historians Sozomen and Theodoret did not include Eudocia in their respective historical works perhaps because they wrote after 443 AD when Eudocia had fallen into disgrace. She was very conscious of her Greek heritage, as demonstrated in her famous address to the citizens of Antioch where she included the line Υμετέρης γενεής τε καί αίματος εύχομαι είναι. On her return, her position was undermined by the jealousy of Pulcheria and the suspicion of an intrigue with her protégé, Paulinus. The argument is considered doubtful as the activity of Eudocia in the 420s focused on Athens rather than Antioch
9.
Licinia Eudoxia
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Licinia Eudoxia was a Roman Empress, daughter of Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II. Her husbands included the Western Roman Emperors Valentinian III and Petronius Maximus, Eudoxia was born in 422, the daughter of Theodosius II, Eastern Roman Emperor and his consort Aelia Eudocia, a woman of Greek origin. Her only known siblings, Arcadius and Flacilla, predeceased their parents and their paternal grandparents were Arcadius and Aelia Eudoxia. Their maternal grandfather was Leontius, a sophist from Athens, the identity of her maternal grandfather was first given by Socrates of Constantinople. John Malalas later gave a detailed account of her mothers history. The jealousy and avarice of her brothers soon compelled Athenais to seek a refuge at Constantinople, later historians have tended to reject the above account as too reminiscent of a fairy tale or a romance novel to be historically accurate. The exact circumstances of the introduction of Eudocia to Theodosius II, the argument is considered doubtful as the building activity of Eudocia in the 420s focused on Athens rather than Antioch. The identity of Eudoxias maternal grandmother is not recorded, in 424, Eudoxia was betrothed to Valentinian III, her first cousin, once removed. The year of their betrothal was recorded by Marcellinus Comes, at the time of their betrothal, Valentinian was approximately four years old, Eudoxia only two. Gibbon attributes the betrothal to the agreement of the three females who governed the Roman world, meaning Galla Placidia, her niece Pulcheria, Galla Placidia was Valentinian IIIs mother and a younger, paternal half-sister of Arcadius. Valentinian III was at the time being prepared to claim the throne of the Western Roman Empire, the latter was not a member of the Theodosian dynasty and thus regarded a usurper by the Eastern court. Within 424, Valentinian was proclaimed a Caesar in the Eastern court, the following year, Joannes was defeated and executed. Valentinian replaced him as Augustus of the West, Eudoxia and Valentinian III married on 29 October 437, in Constantinople, their marriage marking the reunion of the two halves of the House of Theodosius. The marriage was recorded by Socrates of Constantinople, the Chronicon Paschale, in 439, Eudoxia was granted the title of Augusta, with the birth of their first daughter Eudocia. They also had a daughter, Placidia. The births and eventual fates of the two daughters were recorded by Priscus, Procopius, John Malalas and the Chronicon Paschale, on 16 March 455, Valentinian III was killed in the Campus Martius, Rome by Optila and Thraustila. He summoned Optila and Thraustila, brave Scythians who had campaigned with Aëtius and had assigned to attend on Valentinian. He gave and received guarantees, put the blame for Aëtius murder on the Emperor and those who avenged the fallen man, he said, would justly have the greatest blessings
10.
Aelia Eudoxia
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Aelia Eudoxia was the Empress consort of the Byzantine Emperor Arcadius. She was a daughter of Flavius Bauto, a Romanised Frank who served as magister militum in the Western Roman army during the 380s, the identity of her father is mentioned by Philostorgius. The fragmentary chronicle of John of Antioch, a 7th-century monk formerly identified with John of the Sedre, the relation is not accepted by modern historians. The History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian by J. B. Bury and the historical study Theodosian Empresses, Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity by Kenneth Holum consider her mother to be Roman and Eudoxia to be a semibarbara, however the primary sources are silent on her maternal ancestry. Aelia Eudoxias father was last mentioned as Roman Consul with Arcadius in 385 and was deceased by 388. According to Zosimus, Eudoxia started her life in Constantinople as a member of Promotus. She is presumed to have been orphaned at the time of her arrival Her entry into the household of Promotus may indicate a friendship of the two magisters or a political alliance. Zosimus asserts that Eudoxia lived alongside one of the sons in Constantinople and is assumed to have already been acquainted with Arcadius during his years as junior partner to his father. Eudoxia was educated by Pansophius, who was promoted to bishop of Nicomedia in 402. On 17 January 395, Theodosius I succumbed to death by oedema in Milan, Arcadius succeeded him in the Eastern Roman Empire and Honorius in the Western Roman Empire. Arcadius was effectively placed under the control of Rufinus, Praetorian prefect of the East, Rufinus reportedly intended to marry his daughter to Arcadius and establish his own relation to the Theodosian dynasty. Bury considers that once the Emperors father-in‑law he might hope to become an Emperor himself, however Rufinus was distracted by a conflict with Stilicho, magister militum of the West. The wedding of Eudoxia to Arcadius was orchestrated by Eutropius, one of the officials serving in the Great Palace of Constantinople. The marriage took place on 27 April 395, without the knowledge or consent of Rufinus, for Eutropius it was an attempt to increase his own influence over the emperor and hopefully ensure the loyalty of the new empress to himself. Rufinus had been an enemy of Promotus and the household of the magister militum, including Eudoxia. Arcadius himself may have been motivated in asserting his own will over that of his regent, Zosimus reports that Arcadius was also influenced by the extraordinary beauty of his bride. Arcadius was approximately eighteen years old and Eudoxia may be presumed to be of an equivalent age, in the decade between her marriage and her death, Eudoxia gave birth to five surviving children
11.
Latin language
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
12.
Calligraphy
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Calligraphy is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a broad tip instrument, brush, a contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as, the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious, and skillful manner. Modern calligraphy ranges from functional inscriptions and designs to fine-art pieces where the letters may or may not be readable, classical calligraphy differs from typography and non-classical hand-lettering, though a calligrapher may practice both. It is also used for props and moving images for film and television, testimonials, birth and death certificates, maps, the principal tools for a calligrapher are the pen and the brush. Calligraphy pens write with nibs that may be flat, round, for some decorative purposes, multi-nibbed pens—steel brushes—can be used. However, works have also created with felt-tip and ballpoint pens. There are some styles of calligraphy, like Gothic script, which require a stub nib pen, Writing ink is usually water-based and is much less viscous than the oil-based inks used in printing. Normally, light boxes and templates are used to achieve straight lines without pencil markings detracting from the work, ruled paper, either for a light box or direct use, is most often ruled every quarter or half inch, although inch spaces are occasionally used. This is the case with litterea unciales, and college-ruled paper often acts as a guideline well, common calligraphy pens and brushes are, Quill Dip pen Ink brush Qalam Fountain pen Western calligraphy is recognizable by the use of the Latin script. The Latin alphabet appeared about 600 BC, in Rome, and by the first century developed into Roman imperial capitals carved on stones, Rustic capitals painted on walls, in the second and third centuries the uncial lettering style developed. As writing withdrew to monasteries, uncial script was more suitable for copying the Bible. It was the monasteries which preserved calligraphic traditions during the fourth and fifth centuries, at the height of the Empire, its power reached as far as Great Britain, when the empire fell, its literary influence remained. The Semi-uncial generated the Irish Semi-uncial, the small Anglo-Saxon, each region developed its own standards following the main monastery of the region, which are mostly cursive and hardly readable. Christian churches promoted the development of writing through the copying of the Bible, particularly the New Testament. Two distinct styles of writing known as uncial and half-uncial developed from a variety of Roman bookhands, the 7th-9th centuries in northern Europe were the heyday of Celtic illuminated manuscripts, such as the Book of Durrow, Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells. Charlemagnes devotion to improved scholarship resulted in the recruiting of a crowd of scribes, according to Alcuin, Alcuin developed the style known as the Caroline or Carolingian minuscule. The first manuscript in hand was the Godescalc Evangelistary — a Gospel book written by the scribe Godescalc. Carolingian remains the one hand from which modern booktype descends
13.
Byzantine Emperor
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This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Emperors listed below up to Theodosius I in 395 were sole or joint rulers of the entire Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire was the direct legal continuation of the eastern half of the Roman Empire following the division of the Roman Empire in 395. All Byzantine emperors considered themselves to be the rightful Roman emperor in direct succession from Augustus, the title of all Emperors preceding Heraclius was officially Augustus, although other titles such as Dominus were also used. Their names were preceded by Imperator Caesar and followed by Augustus, following Heraclius, the title commonly became the Greek Basileus, which had formerly meant sovereign but was then used in place of Augustus. Following the establishment of the rival Holy Roman Empire in Western Europe, in later centuries, the Emperor could be referred to by Western Christians as the Emperor of the Greeks. Towards the end of the Empire, the standard formula of the Byzantine ruler was in Christ, Emperor. For Roman emperors before Constantine I, see List of Roman emperors, family tree of the Byzantine emperors List of Roman emperors List of Roman usurpers List of Byzantine usurpers List of Roman and Byzantine empresses
14.
Codex Theodosianus
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The Codex Theodosianus was a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Christian emperors since 312. A commission was established by Theodosius II and his co-emperor Valentinian III on 26 March 429 and it went into force in the eastern and western parts of the empire on 1 January 439. Twenty-two scholars, working in two teams, worked for nine years starting in 429 to assemble what was to become the Theodosian Code, the chief overseer of the work was Antiochus Chuzon, a lawyer and a Prefect and Consul from Antioch. Their product was a collection of 16 books containing more than 2,500 constitutions issued between 313 and 437, the code covers political, socioeconomic, cultural and religious subjects of the 4th and 5th century in the Roman Empire. A collection of imperial enactments called the Codex Gregorianus had been written in c, 291-4 and the Codex Hermogenianus, a limited collection of rescripts from c. Theodosius desired to create a code that would provide greater insight into law during the later Empire. According to Peter Stein, Theodosius was perturbed at the low state of legal skill in his empire of the East and he apparently started a school of law at Constantinople. In 429 he assigned a commission to collect all imperial constitutions since the time of Constantine, the laws in the code span from 312-438, so by 438 the volume of imperial law had become unmanageable. During the process of gathering the vast amount of material, often editors would have multiple copies of the same law, in addition to this, the source material the editors were drawing upon changed over time. Clifford Ando notes that according to Matthews, the editors displayed a reliance on western provincial sources through the late 4th century and on central, others have put forth alternate theories to explain the lengthy editorial process and two different commissions. The tone of the reflected the rhetorical training that the drafters had received and Averil Cameron has described it as verbose, moralizing. The Code was written in Latin and referred explicitly to the two capitals of Constantinople and Rome and it was also concerned with the imposition of orthodoxy - the Arian controversy was ongoing - within the Christian religion and contains 65 decrees directed at heretics. Originally, Theodosius had attempted to commission leges generales beginning with Constantine to be used as a supplement for the Codex Gregorianus and he intended to supplement the legal codes with the opinions and writings of ancient Roman Jurists, much like the Digest found later in Justinians Code. But the task proved to be too great, and in 435 it was decided to concentrate solely on the laws from Constantine to the time of writing and this decision defined the greatest difference between the Theodosian Code and Justinians later Corpus Juris Civilis. John F. Justinian’s Code, published about 100 years later, lenski quotes Matthews as noting that the imperial constitutions represented not only prescriptive legal formulas but also descriptive pronouncements of an emperor’s moral and ideological principles. The Codex Theodosianus, is, for example, explicit in ordering that all actions at law should cease during Holy Week, books 1-5 lack the level of manuscript support available for books 6-16. The first five books of the surviving Codex draw largely from two other manuscripts, the Turin manuscript, also known as T, consists of 43, largely discontinuous folios. The second manuscript is the Breviary of Alaric, and a part of the Breviarium that is included in book 1 actually contains the original text of the respective part of the original codex
15.
Walls of Constantinople
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With numerous additions and modifications during their history, they were the last great fortification system of antiquity, and one of the most complex and elaborate systems ever built. Initially built by Constantine the Great, the walls surrounded the new city on all sides, as the city grew, the famous double line of the Theodosian Walls was built in the 5th century. Ultimately the city fell from sheer weight of numbers of the Ottoman forces on 29 May 1453 after a six-week siege. The walls were largely maintained intact during most of the Ottoman period, until sections began to be dismantled in the 19th century, despite the subsequent lack of maintenance, many parts of the walls survived and are still standing today. A large-scale restoration program has been under way since the 1980s, according to tradition, the city was founded as Byzantium by Greek colonists from Megara, led by the eponymous Byzas, around 658 BC. At the time the city consisted of a region around an acropolis. This wall was protected by 27 towers, and had at least two gates, one which survived to become known as the Arch of Urbicius. On the seaward side, the wall was much lower and this wall is known to have been repaired, utilising tomb stones, under the leadership of a certain Leo in 340 BC, against an attack by Philip II of Macedon. Byzantium was relatively unimportant during the early Roman period, contemporaries described it as wealthy, well peopled and well fortified, but this affluence came to an end due to its support for Pescennius Niger in his war against Septimius Severus. Severus punished the city harshly, the walls were demolished. The Patria also mention the existence of another wall during the siege of Byzantium by Constantine the Great during the conflict with Licinius. Like Severus before him, Constantine began to punish the city for siding with his defeated rival, during 324–336 the city was thoroughly rebuilt and inaugurated on 11 May 330 under the name of Second Rome. The name that prevailed in common usage however was Constantinople. The city of Constantine was protected by a new wall about 2.8 km west of the Severan wall, constantines fortification consisted of a single wall, reinforced with towers at regular distances, which began to be constructed in 324 and was completed under his son Constantius II. Only the approximate course of the wall is known, it began at the Church of St. Aemilianus, already by the early 5th century however, Constantinople had expanded outside the Constantinian Wall, in the extramural area known as the Exokionion or Exakionion. The wall survived during much of the Byzantine period, even though it was replaced by the Theodosian Walls as the primary defence. Only traces of the wall appear to have survived in later ages, the recent construction of Yenikapı Transfer Center has unearthed a section of the foundation of the wall of Constantine. The names of a number of gates of the Constantinian Wall survive, the gate stood somewhere on the southern slopes of the Seventh Hill
16.
Constantinople
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Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman/Byzantine Empire, and also of the brief Latin, and the later Ottoman empires. It was reinaugurated in 324 AD from ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was named, Constantinople was famed for its massive and complex defences. The first wall of the city was erected by Constantine I, Constantinople never truly recovered from the devastation of the Fourth Crusade and the decades of misrule by the Latins. The origins of the name of Byzantion, more known by the later Latin Byzantium, are not entirely clear. The founding myth of the city has it told that the settlement was named after the leader of the Megarian colonists, Byzas. The later Byzantines of Constantinople themselves would maintain that the city was named in honour of two men, Byzas and Antes, though this was likely just a play on the word Byzantion. During this time, the city was also called Second Rome, Eastern Rome, and Roma Constantinopolitana. As the city became the remaining capital of the Roman Empire after the fall of the West, and its wealth, population, and influence grew. In the language of other peoples, Constantinople was referred to just as reverently, the medieval Vikings, who had contacts with the empire through their expansion in eastern Europe used the Old Norse name Miklagarðr, and later Miklagard and Miklagarth. In Arabic, the city was sometimes called Rūmiyyat al-kubra and in Persian as Takht-e Rum, in East and South Slavic languages, including in medieval Russia, Constantinople was referred to as Tsargrad or Carigrad, City of the Caesar, from the Slavonic words tsar and grad. This was presumably a calque on a Greek phrase such as Βασιλέως Πόλις, the modern Turkish name for the city, İstanbul, derives from the Greek phrase eis tin polin, meaning into the city or to the city. In 1928, the Turkish alphabet was changed from Arabic script to Latin script, in time the city came to be known as Istanbul and its variations in most world languages. In Greece today, the city is still called Konstantinoúpolis/Konstantinoúpoli or simply just the City, apart from this, little is known about this initial settlement, except that it was abandoned by the time the Megarian colonists settled the site anew. A farsighted treaty with the emergent power of Rome in c.150 BC which stipulated tribute in exchange for independent status allowed it to enter Roman rule unscathed. The site lay astride the land route from Europe to Asia and the seaway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and had in the Golden Horn an excellent and spacious harbour. He would later rebuild Byzantium towards the end of his reign, in which it would be briefly renamed Augusta Antonina, fortifying it with a new city wall in his name, Constantine had altogether more colourful plans. Rome was too far from the frontiers, and hence from the armies and the imperial courts, yet it had been the capital of the state for over a thousand years, and it might have seemed unthinkable to suggest that the capital be moved to a different location. Constantinople was built over 6 years, and consecrated on 11 May 330, Constantine divided the expanded city, like Rome, into 14 regions, and ornamented it with public works worthy of an imperial metropolis
17.
Christology
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Christology is the field of study within Christian theology which is primarily concerned with the nature and person of Jesus as recorded in the canonical Gospels and the epistles of the New Testament. Primary considerations include the relationship of Jesus nature and person with the nature, as such, Christology is concerned with the details of Jesus ministry, his acts and teachings, to arrive at a clearer understanding of who he is in his person, and his role in salvation. The views of Paul the Apostle provided a major component of the Christology of the Apostolic Age, Pauls central themes included the notion of the pre-existence of Christ and the worship of Christ as Kyrios. The pre-existence of Christ became a theme of Christology. Proponents of Christs deity argue the Old Testament has many cases of Christophany, Christophany is often considered a more accurate term than the term theophany due to the belief that all the visible manifestations of God are in fact the preincarnate Christ. Many argue that the appearances of the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament were the preincarnate Christ, many understand the angel of the Lord as a true theophany. From the time of Justin on, the figure has been regarded as the preincarnate Logos, following the Apostolic Age, the early church engaged in fierce and often politicized debate on many interrelated issues. Christology became a focus of these debates, and every one of the first seven ecumenical councils addressed Christological issues. The second through fourth of these councils are generally entitled Christological councils, the Council of Chalcedon in 451 issued a formulation of the being of Christ — that of two natures, one human and one divine, united with neither confusion nor division. Chalcedonian Christianity - Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and many Protestant Christians - continue to advocate this doctrine of the hypostatic union, due to politically-charged differences in the 4th century, schisms developed, and the first denominations formed. In the 13th century, Saint Thomas Aquinas provided the first systematic Christology that consistently resolved a number of the existing issues, in his Christology from above, Aquinas also championed the principle of perfection of Christs human attributes. The Middle Ages also witnessed the emergence of the image of Jesus as a friend. Over the centuries, a number of terms and concepts have been developed within the framework of Christology to address the seemingly simple questions, a good deal of theological debate has ensued and significant schisms within Christian denominations took place in the process of providing answers to these questions. After the Middle Ages, systematic approaches to Christology were developed, the term Christology from above refers to approaches that begin with the divinity and pre-existence of Christ as the Logos, as expressed in the prologue to the Gospel of John. These approaches interpret the works of Christ in terms of his divinity, Christology from above was emphasized in the ancient Church, beginning with Ignatius of Antioch in the second century. The term Christology from below, on the hand, refers to approaches that begin with the human aspects and the ministry of Jesus and move towards his divinity. The concept of Cosmic Christology, first elaborated by Saint Paul, the terms functional, ontological and soteriological have been used to refer to the perspectives that analyze the works, the being and the salvific standpoints of Christology. Some essential sub-topics within the field of Christology include the incarnation, the resurrection, the term monastic Christology has been used to describe spiritual approaches developed by Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux
18.
Nestorianism
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Nestorianism is a Christological doctrine that emphasizes a distinction between the human and divine persons of Jesus. It was advanced by Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople from 428 to 431, following that, many of Nestoriuss supporters relocated to the Sasanian Empire, where they affiliated with the local Christian community, known as the Church of the East. Over the next decades the Church of the East became increasingly Nestorian in doctrine, Nestorianism is a form of dyophysitism. It can be seen as the antithesis to monophysitism, which emerged in reaction to Nestorianism, where Nestorianism holds that Christ had two loosely united natures, divine and human, monophysitism holds that he had but a single nature, his human nature being absorbed into his divinity. Both Nestorianism and monophysitism were condemned as heretical at the Council of Chalcedon, monophysitism survived and developed into the Miaphysitism of the Oriental Orthodoxy. Nestorianism never again became prominent in the Roman Empire or later Europe, though the diffusion of the Church of the East in and after the seventh century, despite this initial Eastern expansion, the Nestorians missionary success was eventually deterred. Isolated pockets of Christianity survived only in India, Nestorius took his Antiochene leanings with him when he was appointed Patriarch of Constantinople by Byzantine emperor Theodosius II in 428. Nestoriuss teachings became the root of controversy when he challenged the long-used title Theotokos for Mary. He suggested that the title denied Christs full humanity, arguing instead that Jesus had two persons, the divine Logos and the human Jesus, as a result of this duality, he proposed Christotokos as a more suitable title for Mary. Nestorius opponents found his teaching too close to the heresy of adoptionism – the idea that Christ had been born a man who had later been adopted as Gods son. Nestorius was especially criticized by Cyril of Alexandria, Patriarch of Alexandria, a more elaborate Nestorian theology developed from there, which came to see Christ as having two natures united, or hypostases, the divine Logos and the human Christ. However, this formulation was never adopted by all churches termed Nestorian, indeed, the modern Assyrian Church of the East, which reveres Nestorius, does not fully subscribe to Nestorian doctrine, though it does not employ the title Theotokos. Nestorianism became a distinct sect following the Nestorian Schism, beginning in the 430s, Nestorius had come under fire from Western theologians, most notably Cyril of Alexandria. Cyril and Nestorius asked Pope Celestine I to weigh in on the matter, Celestine found that the title Theotokos was orthodox, and authorized Cyril to ask Nestorius to recant. Cyril, however, used the opportunity to further attack Nestorius, in 431 Theodosius called the Council of Ephesus. However, the council sided with Cyril, who, being a monophysite. The council accused Nestorius of heresy, and deposed him as patriarch, Nestorianism was officially anathematized, a ruling reiterated at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. However, a number of churches, particularly associated with the School of Edessa, supported Nestorius – though not necessarily his doctrine –
19.
Eutychianism
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Eutychianism refers to a set of Christian theological doctrines derived from the ideas of Eutyches of Constantinople. Eutychianism is an understanding of how the human and divine relate within the person of Jesus Christ. At various times, Eutyches taught that the nature of Christ was overcome by the divine, or that Christ had a human nature. One formulation is that Eutychianism stressed the unity of Christs nature to such an extent that Christs divinity consumed his humanity as the ocean consumes a drop of vinegar, the interpretation has been regarded as monophysite or miaphysite. The response to Eutychianism resulted in the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon in 451, the reaction against Eutychianism also led to the schism with Oriental Orthodoxy. As the Christian church grew and developed, so too did the complexity of its understanding of the Triune God and the person of Christ. The issue of how to reconcile the claims of monotheism with the assertion of the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth was largely settled at the First Ecumenical Council held at Nicaea. Especially among the Greek-speaking Christians, attention turned to how to understand how the person of the Trinity became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ. The Nicene Creed said of Jesus that he was of one Being with the Father and that he was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human. However, neither the Nicene Creed nor the canons of the Council provided an explanation of how God became human in the person of Jesus. One such theory of how the human and divine interact in the person of Jesus was put forward by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Nestorius. Nestorius, a student of the Antiochene school of theology, taught that in the two distinct hypostases were conjoined in Jesus Christ—one human and one divine. Thus, Mary should not be considered the God-bearer, since she only contributed, Nestorius and his teachings were condemned by the Third Ecumenical Council, held in Ephesus in 431, which defined the Church of the East. The distinction of this stance was that the incarnate Christ has one nature, though the Miaphysites condemned Eutychianism, the two groups were both viewed as monophysites by their opponents
20.
Procopius
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Procopius of Caesarea was a prominent late antique scholar from Palaestina Prima. He is commonly held to be the last major historian of the ancient Western world, apart from his own writings, the main source for Procopius life is an entry in the Suda, a Byzantine encyclopaedia, written sometime after 975, which tells everything about his early life. He was a native of Caesarea in the Roman Province Palaestina Prima and he evidently knew Latin, as was natural for a man with legal training. In 527, the first year of Eastern Roman Emperor Justinians reign, he became the adsessor for Belisarius, Procopius was with Belisarius on the eastern front until the latter was defeated at the Battle of Callinicum in 531 and recalled to Constantinople. Procopius witnessed the Nika riots of January,532, which Belisarius, Procopius recorded a few of the extreme weather events of 535–536, although these were presented as a backdrop to Roman military activities, such as a mutiny, in and near Carthage. He rejoined Belisarius for his campaign against the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy and experienced the Gothic siege of Rome that lasted a year and nine days and he witnessed Belisarius entry into the Gothic capital, Ravenna, in 540. Book Eight of the Wars of Justinian, and the Secret History, suggest that his relationship with Belisarius seems to have cooled thereafter. When Belisarius was sent back to Italy in 544 to cope with a renewal of the war with the Goths, now led by the able king Totila, Procopius appears to have no longer been on Belisarius staff. As magister militum, Belisarius was a vir illustris, and Procopius, as his adsessor, must and he thus belonged to the middle-ranking group of the ordo senatorius. However, the Suda, which is well informed in such matters. Should this information be correct, then Procopius had a seat in the senate of Constantinople and it is not known when Procopius himself died, and many historians date his death to 554, but in 562 there was an urban prefect of Constantinople who happened to be called Procopius. In that year, Belisarius was implicated in a conspiracy and was brought before this urban prefect, the writings of Procopius are the primary source of information for the rule of the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian. Procopius Wars of Justinian is clearly his most important work, although it is not as known as the Secret History. The first two deal with the conflict between the Romans and Sassanid Persia in Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia, Lazica and Caucasian Iberia. They also cover the early career of the Roman general Belisarius, Procopius patron, the next two books, the Vandal War, cover Belisarius successful campaign against the Vandal kingdom in Roman Africa. The remaining books cover the Gothic War, the campaigns by Belisarius and others to recapture Italy and this includes accounts of the sieges of Naples and Rome. Later, Procopius added a book, which brings the history to 552/553. This eighth book covers both in Italy and on the Eastern frontier
21.
Sasanian Empire
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The Sasanian Empire was founded by Ardashir I, after the fall of the Parthian Empire and the defeat of the last Arsacid king, Artabanus V. According to a legend, the vexilloid of the Sasanian Empire was the Derafsh Kaviani, in many ways, the Sasanian period witnessed the peak of ancient Iranian civilization. Persia influenced Roman culture considerably during the Sasanian period, the Sasanians cultural influence extended far beyond the empires territorial borders, reaching as far as Western Europe, Africa, China and India. It played a prominent role in the formation of both European and Asian medieval art, much of what later became known as Islamic culture in art, architecture, music and other subject matter was transferred from the Sasanians throughout the Muslim world. Conflicting accounts shroud the details of the fall of the Parthian Empire, the Sassanid Empire was established in Estakhr by Ardashir I. Papak was originally the ruler of a region called Khir, however, by the year 200, he managed to overthrow Gochihr, and appoint himself as the new ruler of the Bazrangids. His mother, Rodhagh, was the daughter of the governor of Pars. Papak and his eldest son Shapur managed to expand their power all of Pars. The subsequent events are unclear, due to the nature of the sources. It is certain, however, that following the death of Papak, Ardashir, sources reveal that Shapur, leaving for a meeting with his brother, was killed when the roof of a building collapsed on him. By the year 208, over the protests of his brothers who were put to death. Once Ardashir was appointed shahanshah, he moved his capital further to the south of Pars, the city, well supported by high mountains and easily defendable through narrow passes, became the center of Ardashirs efforts to gain more power. The city was surrounded by a high, circular wall, probably copied from that of Darabgird, in a second attempt to destroy Ardashir, Artabanus V himself met Ardashir in battle at Hormozgan, where Artabanus V met his death. Following the death of the Parthian ruler, Ardashir I went on to invade the provinces of the now defunct Parthian Empire. Ardashir was aided by the geography of the province of Fars, in the next few years, local rebellions would form around the empire. Nonetheless, Ardashir I further expanded his new empire to the east and northwest, conquering the provinces of Sistan, Gorgan, Khorasan, Margiana, Balkh and he also added Bahrain and Mosul to Sassanids possessions. In the west, assaults against Hatra, Armenia and Adiabene met with less success, in 230, he raided deep into Roman territory, and a Roman counter-offensive two years later ended inconclusively, although the Roman emperor, Alexander Severus, celebrated a triumph in Rome. Ardashir Is son Shapur I continued the expansion of the empire, conquering Bactria, invading Roman Mesopotamia, Shapur I captured Carrhae and Nisibis, but in 243 the Roman general Timesitheus defeated the Persians at Rhesaina and regained the lost territories
22.
Yazdegerd I
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Yazdegerd I was the fourteenth Sasanian king of Persia and ruled from 399 to 420. He was the son of Shapur III and he succeeded to the Sasanian throne on the assassination of his brother Bahram IV in 399 and ruled for twenty-one years till his death in 420. Yazdegerd Is reign was largely uneventful, the king is described as being of a peaceful disposition. There were cordial relations between Persia and the Eastern Roman Empire as well as between Persia and the Western Roman Empire, Yazdegerd promoted Christianity in the early years of his reign and later opposed it. He is known in Sasanian sources as the Sinner, Yazdegerd also used the title of Ramshahr, which fitted to him, due to his peace with the Romans and tolerance towards his subjects. The title Ramshahr was a used by the legendary Kayanid kings, and thus starts the Sasanian interest in Kayanid history. During Yazdegerds last days, there took place a civil war between his sons, Bahram V emerged victorious and claimed the throne. Yazdegerd I died in 420 and was succeeded by his son Bahram V. Yazdegerd was the son of Shapur III, Yazdegerd had three sons whom were named, Shapur IV, Narseh, and Bahram V. When Yazdegerds brother Bahram IV was assassinated in 399, he succeeded him, the Persian soldiers who had murdered Bahram IV did not hurt him on account of his excellent character and fine disposition. The general tenor of his rule was quite peaceful, between 386 and 398, Gildo the Moor ruled an independent kingdom in Africa, and in 395 the Goths took to arms under their leader Alaric. But Yazdegerd on his accession to the throne desisted from assuming any aggressive posture towards the Eastern Roman Emperor Arcadius or the Western Roman Emperor Honorius. On the ninth year of his reign, it is believed, Yazdegerd was entrusted the care of Prince Theodosius by his father Arcadius, the Eastern Roman Emperor. It was strange that Arcadius chose neither his younger-brother Honorius nor any of his subjects for the purpose. One writer even goes to the extent of claiming that Arcadius gifted Yazdegerd a thousand pounds of gold in return for his favour. Flattered, he performed his role with utmost sincerity providing him the best possible education. A eunuch named Antiochus was selected and sent to Constantinople to look after the young Emperor and he was, for many years, the princes intimate companion. He was supposed to have killed or expelled from the kingdom by Pulcheria. However, even after Antiochus end, Yazdegerd continued his aid to the young monarch, according to Wein, Yazdegerd I was a wise, benevolent, and astute ruler
23.
Greek people
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The Greeks or Hellenes are an ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Albania, Turkey, Sicily, Egypt and, to a lesser extent, other countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world, many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of ancient Greek colonization. The cultural centers of the Greeks have included Athens, Thessalonica, Alexandria, Smyrna, most ethnic Greeks live nowadays within the borders of the modern Greek state and Cyprus. The Greek genocide and population exchange between Greece and Turkey nearly ended the three millennia-old Greek presence in Asia Minor, other longstanding Greek populations can be found from southern Italy to the Caucasus and southern Russia and Ukraine and in the Greek diaspora communities in a number of other countries. Today, most Greeks are officially registered as members of the Greek Orthodox Church, the Greeks speak the Greek language, which forms its own unique branch within the Indo-European family of languages, the Hellenic. They are part of a group of ethnicities, described by Anthony D. Smith as an archetypal diaspora people. Both migrations occur at incisive periods, the Mycenaean at the transition to the Late Bronze Age, the Mycenaeans quickly penetrated the Aegean Sea and, by the 15th century BC, had reached Rhodes, Crete, Cyprus and the shores of Asia Minor. Around 1200 BC, the Dorians, another Greek-speaking people, followed from Epirus, the Dorian invasion was followed by a poorly attested period of migrations, appropriately called the Greek Dark Ages, but by 800 BC the landscape of Archaic and Classical Greece was discernible. The Greeks of classical antiquity idealized their Mycenaean ancestors and the Mycenaean period as an era of heroes, closeness of the gods. The Homeric Epics were especially and generally accepted as part of the Greek past, as part of the Mycenaean heritage that survived, the names of the gods and goddesses of Mycenaean Greece became major figures of the Olympian Pantheon of later antiquity. The ethnogenesis of the Greek nation is linked to the development of Pan-Hellenism in the 8th century BC, the works of Homer and Hesiod were written in the 8th century BC, becoming the basis of the national religion, ethos, history and mythology. The Oracle of Apollo at Delphi was established in this period, the classical period of Greek civilization covers a time spanning from the early 5th century BC to the death of Alexander the Great, in 323 BC. It is so named because it set the standards by which Greek civilization would be judged in later eras, the Peloponnesian War, the large scale civil war between the two most powerful Greek city-states Athens and Sparta and their allies, left both greatly weakened. Many Greeks settled in Hellenistic cities like Alexandria, Antioch and Seleucia, two thousand years later, there are still communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan, like the Kalash, who claim to be descended from Greek settlers. The Hellenistic civilization was the period of Greek civilization, the beginnings of which are usually placed at Alexanders death. This Hellenistic age, so called because it saw the partial Hellenization of many non-Greek cultures and this age saw the Greeks move towards larger cities and a reduction in the importance of the city-state. These larger cities were parts of the still larger Kingdoms of the Diadochi, Greeks, however, remained aware of their past, chiefly through the study of the works of Homer and the classical authors. An important factor in maintaining Greek identity was contact with barbarian peoples and this led to a strong desire among Greeks to organize the transmission of the Hellenic paideia to the next generation
24.
Roman-Sassanid War (421-422)
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The Roman–Sassanid war of 421–422 was a conflict between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanids. Among them there was James Intercisus, a counsellor of Yazdegerds. The persecuted Christians fled to Roman territory, and were welcomed by the bishop of Constantinople, Atticus, the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II was at the time deeply influenced by his religious sister Pulcheria, and had become more and more interested in Christianity. The Roman-Sassanid relationship already had some friction, the Persians had hired some Roman gold-diggers, but now refused to send them back, furthermore, the Sassanids seized the properties of Roman merchants. So, when Persian ambassadors reached the Roman court to ask for the fugitives, Theodosius choose to break the peace and declare war, the commander-in-chief of the Roman army was Ardaburius, who, incidentally, came from the Iranian tribe of the Alans. Ardaburius needed to collect many troops for his campaign, Theodosius, therefore, allowed some Pannonian Ostrogoths to settle in Thracia, to defend the province from the Huns while the Thracian Roman troops were sent to the East. Ardaburius sent Anatolius to Persarmenia, where he joined the rebels, while Ardaburius entered in Persian territory, the general of the Sassanid army, Narses, moved with his troops against Ardaburius, and engaged the Romans in battle, but was defeated and forced to retreat. Narses planned to attack Mesopotamia, a Roman province that had left unguarded, and moved there. Ardaburius received reinforcements and put the fortress of Nisibis under siege, bahram allied with the Lakhmid Arabs of Alamundarus, who, however, were dispersed by the Romans. In the meantime, the King of the Huns, Rua, had attacked the dioceses of Dacia and Thracia and had even menaced Constantinople, at the same time, to avoid a war on two fronts, Theodosius then recalled Ardaburius back. According to a Roman ecclesiastical source, the Sassanids besieged Theodosiopolis for 30 days, with thousands of soldiers, despite the evident religious theme of this account, the passage is important as it testifies an unsuccessful Sassanid attack on Theodosiopolis. The peace treaty ended the war was negotiated by the magister officiorum Helio. It returned everything to the situation before the war, both parts agreed to reject Arab defectors of the other part, as well as to guarantee liberty of religion in their territories. The Romans, however, were obliged to give a tribute to the Huns. Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell, The Rome that did not fall, warren T. Treadgold, A history of the Byzantine state and society, Stanford University Press,1997, ISBN 0-8047-2630-2, p.90. Michael Gaddis, There is no crime for those who have Christ, religious violence in the Christian Roman empire, University of California Press,2005, ISBN 0-520-24104-5, pgs. 196-197 The most complete account of the war is preserved in Socrates Scholasticus, Historia Ecclesiastica VII.18, english translations of these sections are present in, Michael H. Dodgeon, Samuel N. C. Lieu, Geoffrey Greatrex, The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars, Part 2, CRC Press,2002, ISBN 0-203-99454-X, p. 38-41
25.
Honorius (emperor)
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Honorius was Western Roman Emperor from 393 to 423. He was the son of emperor Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, and brother of Arcadius. Even by the standards of the rapidly declining Western Empire, Honoriuss reign was precarious and his reign was supported by his principal general, Stilicho, who was successively Honoriuss guardian and his father-in-law. Stilichos generalship helped preserve some level of stability, but with his execution in 408, Honorius is widely considered as one of the worst of the emperors, it was during his reign that Rome was sacked for the first time in 800 years. When Theodosius died, in January 395, Honorius and Arcadius divided the Empire, during the first part of his reign Honorius depended on the military leadership of the general Stilicho, who had been appointed by Theodosius and was of mixed Vandal and Roman ancestry. To strengthen his bonds with the emperor, Stilicho married his daughter Maria to him. The epithalamion written for the occasion by Stilichos court poet Claudian survives, Honorius was also greatly influenced by the Popes of Rome, who sought to extend their influence through his youth and weak character. So it was that Pope Innocent I contrived to have Honorius write to his brother, while the new capital was easier to defend, it was poorly situated to allow Roman forces to protect central Italy from the increasingly regular threat of barbarian incursions. It was significant that the Emperors residence remained in Ravenna until the overthrow of the last western Roman Emperor in 476. That was probably the reason why Ravenna was chosen not only as the capital of the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy, Honorius reign was plagued by almost constant barbarian incursions into Gaul, Italy and Hispania. At the same time, a host of usurpers rose up due to the apparent inability of the Emperor to see to the Empires defences. The first crisis faced by Honorius was a led by Gildo, the Comes Africae and Magister utriusque militiae per Africam, in Northern Africa. It was eventually subdued by Stilicho, under the command of Mascezel. The next crisis was the Visigoth invasion of Italy in 402 under the command of their king. Stilicho hurried back to protect Honorius and the legions of Gaul, Honorius, slumbering at Milan, was caught unaware and quickly fled to Asti, only to be pursued by Alaric, who marched into Liguria. Stilicho defeated Alaric at Pollentia, on the river Tanarus on Easter Day, Alaric retreated to Verona, where Stilicho attacked him again. The Visigoths, weakened, were allowed to back to Illyricum. In 405 Stilicho met an invasion of Italy led across the Danube by Radagaisus and they brought devastation to the heart of the Empire, until Stilicho defeated them in 406 and recruited most of them into his forces
26.
Primicerius notariorum
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Etymologically the term derives from primus in cera, which is to say in tabula cerata, the first name in a list of a class of officials, which was usually inscribed on a waxed tablet. From their origin in the court of the Dominate, there were several primicerii, in the court, there was the primicerius sacri cubiculi, in charge of the emperors bedchamber, almost always a eunuch. The title was given to court officials in combination with other offices connected to the imperial person. Other primicerii headed some of the scrinia of the palace, chiefly the notarii, in the Late Roman army, the primicerius was a rank junior to the tribunus and senior to the senator. They are best attested in units associated with the imperial court, primicerii are also to be found in the staffs of regional military commanders, as well as in some regular military units. In the later Byzantine era, under the Komnenian emperors, primikērioi appear as commanders in the regiments of the Manglabitai, Vardariōtai, Vestiaritai. In the late 11th century, the dignity of megas primikērios was established, which ranked high in court hierarchy well into the Palaiologan period. Primikērioi continue to be in evidence in the Byzantine Empire and the Despotate of Morea until their fall to the Ottomans. When young clerics were assembled in schools for training in the service in the different districts of the Western Church. Thus, an inscription of the year 551 from Lyon mentions a Stephanus primicerius scolae lectorum servientium in ecclesia Lugdunensi, isidore of Seville treats of the obligations of the primicerius of the lower clerics in his Epistola ad Ludefredum. From this position the primicerius also derived certain powers in the direction of liturgical functions, the primicerius thus became a special dignitary of many chapters by a gradual development from the position of the old primicerius of the scola cantorum or lectorum. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the title was used for the heads of the colleges of the notarioi and taboularioi in the Church bureaucracy, but also for the chief lectors, cantors, etc. of a church. Le Blant, Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule, I,142, n.45 Charles du Fresne, sieur du Cange, Glossarium Gregory of Tours, Hist
27.
Joannes
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Ioannes, known in English as Joannes or even John, was a Roman usurper against Valentinian III. On the death of the Emperor Honorius, Theodosius II, the ruler of the House of Theodosius hesitated in announcing his uncles death. In the interregnum, Honoriuss patrician at the time of his death, Castinus, Joannes was a primicerius notariorum or senior civil servant at the time of his elevation. Procopius praised him as gentle and well-endowed with sagacity and thoroughly capable of valorous deeds. Unlike the Theodosian emperors, he tolerated all Christian sects, from the beginning, his control over the empire was insecure. In Gaul, his praetorian prefect was slain at Arles in an uprising of the soldiery there, and Bonifacius, Comes of the Diocese of Africa, held back the grain fleet destined to Rome. The events of Johannes reign are as shadowy as its origins, writes John Matthews, Joannes was proclaimed at Rome and praetorian games were provided at the expense of a member of the gens Anicia. Johannes then moved his base of operations to Ravenna, knowing well that the Eastern Empire would strike from that direction. There is a mention of an expedition against Africa, but its fate, in Gaul, he appears to have caused offense by submitting clerics to secular courts. Late in 424, he gave to one of his younger and most promising followers, Aëtius, Aëtius, Governor of the Palace at the time, was sent to the Huns, with whom he had lived as a hostage earlier, to seek military help. While Aëtius was away, the army of the Eastern Empire left Thessalonica for Italy, three days after Joanness death, Aëtius returned at the head of a substantial Hunnic army. After some skirmishing, Placidia, regent to her son, the Huns were paid off and sent home, while Aetius received the position of magister militum. The historian Adrian Goldsworthy writes that it took a hard-fought campaign by elements of the East Roman army and navy, in addition to a fair dose of betrayal. Hugh Elton, Ioannes, from De Imperatoribus Romanis
28.
Galla Placidia
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Aelia Galla Placidia, daughter of the Roman emperor Theodosius I, was regent to Valentinian III from 423 until his majority in 437, and a major force in Roman politics for most of her life. She was queen consort to Ataulf, king of the Visigoths from 414 until his death in 415, Placidia was the daughter of Theodosius I and his second wife, Galla, who was herself daughter of Valentinian I and his second wife, Justina. Her older brother Gratian died young and her mother died in childbirth in 394, giving birth to John, who died with their mother. Placidia was a younger, paternal half-sister of emperors Arcadius and Honorius and her older half-sister Pulcheria predeceased her parents according to Gregory of Nyssa, placing the death of Pulcheria prior to the death of Aelia Flaccilla, the first wife of Theodosius I, in 385. Placidia was granted her own household by her father in the early 390s and was financially independent while underage. She was summoned to the court of her father in Mediolanum during 394 and she was present at Theodosius death on January 17,395. She was granted the title of Nobilissima Puella during her childhood, Placidia spent most of her early years in the household of Stilicho the Vandal and his wife, Serena. She is presumed to have learned weaving and embroidery and she might have also been given a classical education, though no details are known. Serena was a first cousin of Arcadius, Honorius and Placidia, the poem In Praise of Serena by Claudian and the Historia Nova by Zosimus clarify that Serenas father was an elder Honorius, a brother to Theodosius I. According to De Consulatu Stilichonis by Claudian, Placidia was betrothed to Eucherius, only son of Stilicho. Her scheduled marriage is mentioned in the text as the union between Stilichos family and the Theodosian dynasty, following those of Stilicho to Serena and Maria, their daughter. Stilicho was the magister militum of the Western Roman Empire and he was the only known person to hold the rank of magister militum in praesenti from 394 to 408 in both the Western and the Eastern Roman Empire. He was also titled magister equitum et peditum, placing him in charge of both the cavalry and infantry forces of the Western Roman Empire, in 408, Arcadius died and was succeeded by his son Theodosius II, only seven years old. Stilicho planned to proceed to Constantinople and undertake the management of the affairs of Theodosius, shortly after, Olympius, an officer of rank in the court-guards attempted to convince Honorius that Stilicho was in fact conspiring to depose Theodosius II, to replace him with Eucherius. Olympius proceeded to lead a military coup détat which left him in control of Honorius, Stilicho was arrested and executed on August 22,408. Eucherius sought refuge in Rome but was arrested there by Arsacius and Tarentius and they executed him not long after. Honorius appointed Tarentius imperial chamberlain, and gave the next post under him to Arsacius and their deaths left Placidia effectively unattached. In the disturbances that followed the fall of Stilicho, throughout the Italian Peninsula the wives, the foederati were considered loyalists of Stilicho and treated accordingly
29.
Valentinian III
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Valentinian III was Western Roman Emperor from 425 to 455. His reign was marked by the dismemberment of the Western Empire. Valentinian was born in the capital of Ravenna, the only son of Galla Placidia. His mother was the younger half-sister of the western emperor Honorius, while his father was at the time a Patrician and the power behind the throne. Through his mother, Valentinian was a descendant both of Theodosius I, who was his grandfather, and of Valentinian I, who was the father of his maternal grandmother. It was also through his mothers side of the family that he was the nephew of Honorius and first cousin to Theodosius II, Valentinian had a full sister, Justa Grata Honoria, who was probably born in 417 or 418. When Valentinian was less than two years old, Honorius appointed Constantius co-emperor, a position he would hold until his death seven months later, as a result of all these family ties, Valentinian was the son, grandson, great-grandson, cousin, and nephew of Roman Emperors. In either 421 or 423, Valentinian was given the title of Nobilissimus by Honorius, in 423, Honorius died, and the usurper Joannes took the power in Rome. To counter this threat to his power, Theodosius belatedly recognised Valentinian’s father as Augustus, Theodosius also betrothed him to his own daughter Licinia Eudoxia. Given his minority status, the new Augustus ruled under the regency of his mother Galla Placidia and her regency lasted until 437, and, for the duration, Theodosius II gave her his full support. This period was marked with an imperial policy and an attempt to stabilize the western provinces as far as the stretched resources of the empire could manage. In 425, the court at Ravenna negotiated with the Huns who had accompanied Flavius Aëtius to Italy in support of Joannes and they agreed to leave Italy, and to evacuate the province of Pannonia Valeria, which was returned to the empire. This allowed Felix and the government to restructure the defences along the Danubian provinces in 427 and 428. In addition, there were significant victories over the Visigoths in Gaul in 426/7 and 430, nevertheless, there were significant problems that threatened the viability of the Roman state in the west. The Visigoths were a constant presence in south-eastern Gaul and could not be dislodged, the Vandals in Hispania continued their incursions, and, in 429, they commenced their invasion of Mauretania Tingitana. The loss of these territories seriously impacted the ability to function. The burden of taxation became more and more intolerable as Romes power decreased, in 427, Felix accused Bonifacius of being a traitor and demanded that he return to Italy. Bonifacius refused and defeated an army sent by Felix to capture him, weakened, Felix was unable to resist Aëtius who, with the support of Galla Placidia, replaced him as Magister militum praesentalis in 429, before having him killed in 430
30.
Magister Officiorum
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The magister officiorum was one of the most senior administrative officials in the late Roman Empire and the early centuries of the Byzantine Empire. In Byzantium, the office was transformed into a senior honorary rank. Although some scholars have supported its creation under Emperor Diocletian, the office can first be traced to the rule of Roman emperor Constantine I. Constantine probably created it in an effort to limit the power of the praetorian prefect, the first bureau handled imperial decisions called annotationes, because they were notes made by the emperor on documents presented to him, and also handled replies to petitions to the emperor. Especially this control of the feared agentes, or magistriani, as they were colloquially known, the office rose quickly in importance, initially ranked as a tribunus, by the end of Constantines reign the magister was a full comes. These last changes are reflected in the Notitia Dignitatum, a list of all offices compiled circa 400, sometime in the 5th century, the Eastern magister also assumed authority over the border guards or limitanei. One of the most important incumbents of this office was Peter the Patrician, the office was also retained in Ostrogothic Italy after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and was held by eminent Roman senators such as Boethius and Cassiodorus. The rank continued in existence thereafter, but lost increasingly in importance, in the late 10th and 11th centuries, it was often held in combination with the title of vestēs. From the late 11th century it was devalued, especially in the Komnenian period. The Imperial Administrative System of the Ninth Century - With a Revised Text of the Kletorologion of Philotheos, new York and Oxford, Oxford University Press. The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine, martindale, John Robert, Jones, Arnold Hugh Martin, Morris, J. eds. The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Volume II, A. D. 395–527, the Reign of Leo VI, Politics and People
31.
Helion (magister officiorum)
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Helion was a patricius and magister officiorum under Theodosius II. He occupied the office since 414, in 422 he negotiated an end to the short war with Sassanid Persia. The Fall of the Roman Empire, A New History, martindale, John R. Morris, John, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Volume II, AD 395–527, Cambridge University Press, p.533, ISBN 978-0-521-20159-9
32.
Constantine I
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Constantine the Great, also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was a Roman Emperor from 306 to 337 AD. Constantine was the son of Flavius Valerius Constantius, a Roman Army officer and his father became Caesar, the deputy emperor in the west, in 293 AD. Constantine was sent east, where he rose through the ranks to become a military tribune under the emperors Diocletian, in 305, Constantius was raised to the rank of Augustus, senior western emperor, and Constantine was recalled west to campaign under his father in Britannia. As emperor, Constantine enacted many administrative, financial, social, the government was restructured and civil and military authority separated. A new gold coin, the solidus, was introduced to combat inflation and it would become the standard for Byzantine and European currencies for more than a thousand years. He called the First Council of Nicaea in 325, at which the Nicene Creed was adopted by Christians, in military matters, the Roman army was reorganised to consist of mobile field units and garrison soldiers capable of countering internal threats and barbarian invasions. The age of Constantine marked an epoch in the history of the Roman Empire. He built a new residence at Byzantium and renamed the city Constantinople after himself. It would later become the capital of the Empire for over one thousand years and his more immediate political legacy was that, in leaving the empire to his sons, he replaced Diocletians tetrarchy with the principle of dynastic succession. His reputation flourished during the lifetime of his children and centuries after his reign, the medieval church upheld him as a paragon of virtue while secular rulers invoked him as a prototype, a point of reference, and the symbol of imperial legitimacy and identity. Beginning with the Renaissance, there were more critical appraisals of his due to the rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources. Critics portrayed him as a tyrant, trends in modern and recent scholarship attempted to balance the extremes of previous scholarship. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on his orders at the site of Jesus tomb in Jerusalem. The Papal claim to power in the High Middle Ages was based on the supposed Donation of Constantine. He is venerated as a saint by Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholics, though Constantine has historically often been referred to as the First Christian Emperor, scholars debate his actual beliefs or even his actual comprehension of the Christian faith itself. Constantine was a ruler of major importance, and he has always been a controversial figure, the fluctuations in Constantines reputation reflect the nature of the ancient sources for his reign. These are abundant and detailed, but have strongly influenced by the official propaganda of the period. There are no surviving histories or biographies dealing with Constantines life, the nearest replacement is Eusebius of Caesareas Vita Constantini, a work that is a mixture of eulogy and hagiography
33.
Justinian I
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Justinian I, traditionally known as Justinian the Great and also Saint Justinian the Great in the Eastern Orthodox Church, was a Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the empires greatness, because of his restoration activities, Justinian has sometimes been called the last Roman in modern historiography. This ambition was expressed by the recovery of the territories of the defunct western Roman Empire. His general, Belisarius, swiftly conquered the Vandal kingdom in North Africa, the prefect Liberius reclaimed the south of the Iberian peninsula, establishing the province of Spania. These campaigns re-established Roman control over the western Mediterranean, increasing the Empires annual revenue by over a million solidi, during his reign Justinian also subdued the Tzani, a people on the east coast of the Black Sea that had never been under Roman rule before. A still more resonant aspect of his legacy was the rewriting of Roman law, the Corpus Juris Civilis. His reign also marked a blossoming of Byzantine culture, and his building program yielded such masterpieces as the church of Hagia Sophia, a devastating outbreak of bubonic plague in the early 540s marked the end of an age of splendour. Justinian was born in Tauresium around 482, a native speaker of Latin, he came from a peasant family believed to have been of Illyro-Roman or Thraco-Roman origins. The cognomen Iustinianus, which he later, is indicative of adoption by his uncle Justin. During his reign, he founded Justiniana Prima not far from his birthplace and his mother was Vigilantia, the sister of Justin. Justin, who was in the guard before he became emperor, adopted Justinian, brought him to Constantinople. As a result, Justinian was well educated in jurisprudence, theology, Justinian served for some time with the Excubitors but the details of his early career are unknown. Chronicler John Malalas, who lived during the reign of Justinian, tells of his appearance that he was short, fair skinned, curly haired, round faced, another contemporary chronicler, Procopius, compares Justinians appearance to that of tyrannical Emperor Domitian, although this is probably slander. When Emperor Anastasius died in 518, Justin was proclaimed the new emperor, during Justins reign, Justinian was the emperors close confidant. As Justin became senile near the end of his reign, Justinian became the de facto ruler, Justinian was appointed consul in 521 and later commander of the army of the east. Upon Justins death on 1 August 527, Justinian became the sole sovereign, as a ruler, Justinian showed great energy. He was known as the emperor who never sleeps on account of his work habits, nevertheless, he seems to have been amiable and easy to approach. Around 525, he married his mistress, Theodora, in Constantinople and she was by profession a courtesan and some twenty years his junior
34.
Corpus Juris Civilis
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This article is about the Roman law codification of Justinian I. For the canon law codification of a name, see Corpus Juris Canonici. The Corpus Juris Civilis is the name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Justinian I. It is also referred to as the Code of Justinian. All three parts, even the textbook, were given force of law and they were intended to be, together, the sole source of law, reference to any other source, including the original texts from which the Code and the Digest had been taken, was forbidden. Nonetheless, Justinian found himself having to enact laws and today these are counted as a fourth part of the Corpus. The work was directed by Tribonian, an official in Justinians court and his team was authorized to edit what they included. How far they made amendments is not recorded and, in the main, by the early 7th century, the official government language had become Greek during the lengthy reign of Heraclius. How far the Corpus Juris Civilis or any of its parts was effective, however, it was not in general use during the Early Middle Ages. After the Early Middle Ages, interest in it revived and it was received or imitated as private law and its public law content was quarried for arguments by both secular and ecclesiastical authorities. This revived Roman law, in turn, became the foundation of law in all civil law jurisdictions. The provisions of the Corpus Juris Civilis also influenced the law of the Roman Catholic Church. The Corpus continues to have an influence on public international law. Its four parts thus constitute the foundation documents of the Western legal tradition, the Codex was the first part to be finished, on 7 April 529. It contained in Latin most of the existing imperial constitutiones, back to the time of Hadrian and these works had developed authoritative standing. This first edition is now lost, an edition was issued in 534 and is the text that has survived. At least the second edition contained some of Justinians own legislation and it is not known whether he intended there to be further editions, although he did envisage translation of Latin enactments into Greek. Laws against heresy The very first law in the Codex requires all persons under the jurisdiction of the Empire to hold the Christian faith and this was primarily aimed against heresies such as Nestorianism
35.
Huns
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The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia between the 1st century AD and the 7th century AD. In 91 AD, the Huns were said to be living near the Caspian Sea, by 370, the Huns had established a vast, if short-lived, dominion in Europe. In the 18th century, the French scholar Joseph de Guignes became the first to propose a link between the Huns and the Xiongnu people, who were neighbours of China in the 3rd century BC. Since Guignes time, considerable effort has been devoted to investigating such a connection. However, there is no consensus on a direct connection between the dominant element of the Xiongnu and that of the Huns. Numerous other ethnic groups were included under Attilas rule, including very many speakers of Gothic and their main military technique was mounted archery. The Huns may have stimulated the Great Migration, a factor in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. They formed an empire under Attila the Hun, who died in 453. Variants of the Hun name are recorded in the Caucasus until the early 8th century, the Huns were a confederation of warrior bands, ready to integrate other groups to increase their military power, in the Eurasian Steppe in the 4th to 6th centuries AD. Most aspects of their ethnogenesis are uncertain, walter Pohl explicitly states, All we can say safely is that the name Huns, in late antiquity, described prestigious ruling groups of steppe warriors. Jerome associated them with the Scythians in a letter, written four years after the Huns invaded the eastern provinces in 395. The equation of the Huns with the Scythians, together with a fear of the coming of the Antichrist in the late 4th century. This demonization of the Huns is also reflected in Jordaness Getica, written in the 6th century, otto J. Maenchen-Helfen was the first to challenge the traditional approach, based primarily on the study of written sources, and to emphasize the importance of archaeological research. Thereafter the identification of the Xiongnu as the Huns ancestors became controversial among some, the similarity of their ethnonyms is one of the most important links between the two peoples. A Sogdian merchant described the invasion of northern China by the Xwn people in a letter, Étienne de la Vaissière asserts both documents prove that Huna or Xwn were the exact transcriptions of the Chinese Xiongnu name. Christopher P. Atwood rejects that identification because of the very poor match between the three words. For instance, Xiongnu begins with a velar fricative, Huna with a voiceless glottal fricative, Xiongnu is a two-syllable word. However, according to Zhengzhang Shangfang, Xiongnu was pronounced in Late Old Chinese, the Chinese Book of Wei contain references to the remains of the descendants of the Xiongnu who lived in the region of the Altai Mountains in the early 5th century AD
36.
Attila
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Attila, frequently referred to as Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in March 453. Attila was a leader of the Hunnic Empire, a confederation consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths. During his reign, he was one of the most feared enemies of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires and he crossed the Danube twice and plundered the Balkans, but was unable to take Constantinople. His unsuccessful campaign in Persia was followed in 441 by an invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire and he also attempted to conquer Roman Gaul, crossing the Rhine in 451 and marching as far as Aurelianum before being defeated at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. He subsequently invaded Italy, devastating the northern provinces, but was unable to take Rome and he planned for further campaigns against the Romans but died in 453. After Attilas death his close adviser Ardaric of the Gepids led a Germanic revolt against Hunnic rule, there is no surviving first-hand account of Attilas appearance, but there is a possible second-hand source provided by Jordanes, who cites a description given by Priscus. He was a man born into the world to shake the nations, the scourge of all lands and he was haughty in his walk, rolling his eyes hither and thither, so that the power of his proud spirit appeared in the movement of his body. He was indeed a lover of war, yet restrained in action, mighty in counsel, gracious to suppliants, the Gothic etymology can be tracked up to Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm in the early 19th century. Maenchen-Helfen noted that Hunnic names were not the names of the Hun princes. The names of Attilas brother Bleda, and most powerful minister Onegesius, mikkola connected it with Turkic āt. Gerd Althoff considered it was related to Turkish atli, or Turkish at, the Gothic origin of the name Attila is questionable, Snædal writes. It is at least as likely to be of Hunnic origin, the article points out that the word atta is a migratory term for father/forefather common in multiple languages, including many Turkic languages. He concludes, Of course we do not know how the name sounded in the language of the Huns, sometime, somewhere, somehow a proto-form like *agtala- changed to *attila. We cannot tell if the assimilation of gt to tt, and/or if loss of a final consonant took place in Hunnic or if these changes were part of the process into Latin, Gothic. Truly, our knowledge of the Hunnic language is almost zero, One can only guess a solution to this riddle of Attilas name. The historiography of Attila is faced with a challenge, in that the only complete sources are written in Greek. Attilas contemporaries left many testimonials of his life, but only fragments of these remain and he wrote a history of the late Roman Empire in eight books covering the period from 430 to 476. Today we have fragments of Priscus work, but it was cited extensively by 6th-century historians Procopius and Jordanes,413 especially in Jordanes The Origin
37.
Vandals
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The Vandals are believed to have migrated from southern Scandinavia to the area between the lower Oder and Vistula rivers during the 2nd century BC and to have settled in Silesia from around 120 BC. They are associated with the Przeworsk culture and were possibly the people as the Lugii. Around 400 the Vandals were pushed westwards again, this time by the Huns, in 409, the Vandals crossed the Pyrenees into the Iberian Peninsula, where their main groups, the Hasdingi and the Silingi, settled in Gallaecia and Baetica respectively. In 429, under king Genseric, the Vandals entered North Africa, by 439 they established a kingdom which included the Roman province of Africa as well as Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta and the Balearic Islands. They fended off several Roman attempts to recapture the African province and their kingdom collapsed in the Vandalic War of 533–4, in which Justinian I managed to reconquer the province for the Eastern Roman Empire. Renaissance and Early Modern writers characterized the Vandals as barbarians, sacking and looting Rome and this led to the use of the term vandalism to describe any senseless destruction, particularly the barbarian defacing of artwork. However, modern historians tend to regard the Vandals during the period from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages as perpetuators, not destroyers. The connection would be that Vendel is the homeland of the Vandals prior to the Migration Period. Further possible homelands of the Vandals in Scandinavia are Vendsyssel in Denmark, the etymology of the name may be related to a Germanic verb *wand- to wander. The Germanic mythological figure of Aurvandil shining wanderer, dawn wanderer, evening star, much has forwarded the theory that the tribal name Vandal reflects worship of Aurvandil or the Dioscuri, probably involving an origin myth that the Vandalic kings were descended from Aurvandil. Some medieval authors applied the ethnonym Vandals to Slavs, Veneti, Wends and it was once thought that the Slovenes were the descendants of the Vandals, but this is not the view of modern scholars. The Vandals are believed to have migrated from southern Scandinavia to the area between the lower Oder and Vistula somewhere in the 2nd century BC, and to have settled in Silesia from around 120 BC. The earliest mention of the Vandals is from Pliny the Elder, tribes within this category who he mentions are the Burgundiones, Varini, Carini, and the Gutones. Most archaeologists and historians identify the Vandals with the Przeworsk culture, the bearers of the Przeworsk culture mainly practiced cremation, with occasional inhumation. The Lugii have been identified by historians as the same people as the Vandals. The Lugii are mentioned by Strabo, Tacitus and Ptolemy as a group of tribes living between the Vistula and the Oder. Neither Strabo, Tacitus or Ptolemy mentions the Vandals, while Pliny the Elder mentions the Vandals, according to John Anderson, the Lugii and Vandili are designations of the same tribal group, the latter an extended ethnic name, the former probably a cult-title. By the end of the 2nd century, the Vandals were divided in two main groups, the Silingi and the Hasdingi, with the Silingi being associated with Silesia
38.
Sicily
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Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous Region of Italy, along with surrounding minor islands, Sicily is located in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula, from which it is separated by the narrow Strait of Messina. Its most prominent landmark is Mount Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe, the island has a typical Mediterranean climate. The earliest archaeological evidence of activity on the island dates from as early as 12,000 BC. It became part of Italy in 1860 following the Expedition of the Thousand, a revolt led by Giuseppe Garibaldi during the Italian unification, Sicily was given special status as an autonomous region after the Italian constitutional referendum of 1946. Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially regard to the arts, music, literature, cuisine. It is also home to important archaeological and ancient sites, such as the Necropolis of Pantalica, the Valley of the Temples, Sicily has a roughly triangular shape, earning it the name Trinacria. To the east, it is separated from the Italian mainland by the Strait of Messina, about 3 km wide in the north, and about 16 km wide in the southern part. The northern and southern coasts are each about 280 km long measured as a line, while the eastern coast measures around 180 km. The total area of the island is 25,711 km2, the terrain of inland Sicily is mostly hilly and is intensively cultivated wherever possible. Along the northern coast, the ranges of Madonie,2,000 m, Nebrodi,1,800 m. The cone of Mount Etna dominates the eastern coast, in the southeast lie the lower Hyblaean Mountains,1,000 m. The mines of the Enna and Caltanissetta districts were part of a leading sulphur-producing area throughout the 19th century, Sicily and its surrounding small islands have some highly active volcanoes. Mount Etna is the largest active volcano in Europe and still casts black ash over the island with its ever-present eruptions and it currently stands 3,329 metres high, though this varies with summit eruptions, the mountain is 21 m lower now than it was in 1981. It is the highest mountain in Italy south of the Alps, Etna covers an area of 1,190 km2 with a basal circumference of 140 km. This makes it by far the largest of the three volcanoes in Italy, being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius. In Greek Mythology, the deadly monster Typhon was trapped under the mountain by Zeus, Mount Etna is widely regarded as a cultural symbol and icon of Sicily. The Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, to the northeast of mainland Sicily form a volcanic complex, the three volcanoes of Vulcano, Vulcanello and Lipari are also currently active, although the latter is usually dormant
39.
Sassanid Persia
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The Sasanian Empire was founded by Ardashir I, after the fall of the Parthian Empire and the defeat of the last Arsacid king, Artabanus V. According to a legend, the vexilloid of the Sasanian Empire was the Derafsh Kaviani, in many ways, the Sasanian period witnessed the peak of ancient Iranian civilization. Persia influenced Roman culture considerably during the Sasanian period, the Sasanians cultural influence extended far beyond the empires territorial borders, reaching as far as Western Europe, Africa, China and India. It played a prominent role in the formation of both European and Asian medieval art, much of what later became known as Islamic culture in art, architecture, music and other subject matter was transferred from the Sasanians throughout the Muslim world. Conflicting accounts shroud the details of the fall of the Parthian Empire, the Sassanid Empire was established in Estakhr by Ardashir I. Papak was originally the ruler of a region called Khir, however, by the year 200, he managed to overthrow Gochihr, and appoint himself as the new ruler of the Bazrangids. His mother, Rodhagh, was the daughter of the governor of Pars. Papak and his eldest son Shapur managed to expand their power all of Pars. The subsequent events are unclear, due to the nature of the sources. It is certain, however, that following the death of Papak, Ardashir, sources reveal that Shapur, leaving for a meeting with his brother, was killed when the roof of a building collapsed on him. By the year 208, over the protests of his brothers who were put to death. Once Ardashir was appointed shahanshah, he moved his capital further to the south of Pars, the city, well supported by high mountains and easily defendable through narrow passes, became the center of Ardashirs efforts to gain more power. The city was surrounded by a high, circular wall, probably copied from that of Darabgird, in a second attempt to destroy Ardashir, Artabanus V himself met Ardashir in battle at Hormozgan, where Artabanus V met his death. Following the death of the Parthian ruler, Ardashir I went on to invade the provinces of the now defunct Parthian Empire. Ardashir was aided by the geography of the province of Fars, in the next few years, local rebellions would form around the empire. Nonetheless, Ardashir I further expanded his new empire to the east and northwest, conquering the provinces of Sistan, Gorgan, Khorasan, Margiana, Balkh and he also added Bahrain and Mosul to Sassanids possessions. In the west, assaults against Hatra, Armenia and Adiabene met with less success, in 230, he raided deep into Roman territory, and a Roman counter-offensive two years later ended inconclusively, although the Roman emperor, Alexander Severus, celebrated a triumph in Rome. Ardashir Is son Shapur I continued the expansion of the empire, conquering Bactria, invading Roman Mesopotamia, Shapur I captured Carrhae and Nisibis, but in 243 the Roman general Timesitheus defeated the Persians at Rhesaina and regained the lost territories
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Serdica
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Sofia was originally a Thracian settlement called Serdica or Sardica, possibly named after the Thracian tribe Serdi that had populated it. For a short period during the 4th century B. C. the city was possessed by Philip of Macedon, Sofia was conquered by the Romans and renamed Ulpia Serdica. It became a municipium, or centre of an administrative region, the city expanded, as turrets, protective walls, public baths, administrative and cult buildings, a civic basilica and a large amphitheatre called Bouleutherion, were built. When Emperor Diocletian divided the province of Dacia into Dacia Ripensis and Dacia Mediterranea, the Edict of Toleration by Galerius was issued in 311 in Serdica by the Roman emperor Galerius, officially ending the Diocletianic persecution of Christianity. The Edict implicitly granted Christianity the status of religio licita, a recognized and accepted by the Roman Empire. It was the first edict legalizing Christianity, preceding the Edict of Milan by two years, the city subsequently expanded for a century and a half, which caused Constantine the Great to call it my Rome. In 343 A. D. the Council of Sardica was held in the city, Serdica was of moderate size, but magnificent as an urban concept of planning and architecture, with abundant amusements and an active social life. It flourished during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, when it was surrounded with great fortress walls whose remnants can still be seen today, the city was destroyed by the Huns in 447, but was rebuilt by Byzantine Emperor Justinian and renamed Triaditsa. Although also often destroyed by the Slavs, the town remained under Byzantine dominion until 809, Sofia first became part of the First Bulgarian Empire during the reign of Khan Krum in 809. Afterwards, it was known by the Bulgarian name Sredets and grew into an important fortress, after a number of unsuccessful sieges, the city fell again to the Byzantine Empire in 1018. From the 12th to the 14th century, Sofia was a centre of trade. It was renamed Sofia in 1376 after the Church of St Sophia, however, it was called both Sofia and Sredets until the 16th century, when the new name gradually replaced the old one. During the whole of the Middle Ages, Sofia remained known for its goldsmithing and this is evidenced by the number of gold treasures excavated from the period and even from Antiquity. Many Ottoman buildings emerged during the period, of which few are preserved today, including only a single mosque. The Ottoman rule saw a demographic growth, as the city grew from a total population of 6,000 through 55,000 to 70-80,000. During the 16th century, Sofia was a trade centre inhabited by Bulgarians, Romaniote, Ashkenazi. In the 17th century, the population included even Albanians and Persians. At the end of the Ottoman occupation, the city had a population of 20,501 of whom 56% Bulgarian, 30% Jewish, 7% Turkish and 6% Roma
Caspari, Maximilian Otto Bismarck (1911). "Theodosius (emperors)". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Caspari, Maximilian Otto Bismarck (1911). "
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