The Arab Siege of Constantinople, 717-18

The Arab Siege of Constantinople, 717-18

What follows bellow is the original draft of a the cover article I wrote for Early Medieval Warfare magazine a few years ago, sometime in the future I would like to write a longer popular monograph on the topic that utilises even more of the latest academic research. To me it is an example of just the right combination of serious and readable history. The complete article with additions and some beautiful images is available in the issue below. I bought some of the original artwork in lieu of pay…and it hangs in my office

Because of the frequent assumptions of imperial power and the prevalence of usurpation, the affairs of the empire and of the City (Constantinople) were being neglected and declined; furthermore, education was being destroyed and military organisation crumbled. As a result, the enemy were able to over-run the Roman state with impunity causing much slaughter, abduction and the capture of cities. For this reason, the Saracens advanced on the Imperial City itself.

                                                                                                          Nicophorus 52

On the morning of 15 August 717, the residents of Constantinople awoke to find their resplendent city besieged by 100,000 of the Umayyad Caliphate’s finest soldiers. Years in the planning, the siege was the recently emerged Muslim Empire’s most ambitious attempt to capture Constantinople and snuff out the stubborn resistance of the Christian Roman Empire once and for all. Having approached the outskirts of the city facing only minimal Roman resistance, Masalama ibn ‘Abd al-Malik—the supreme commander of the Muslim army and brother of the eleventh Caliph, Sulayman bin Abd al-Malik (r. 715-717)—had then ordered his men to dig trenches around the city’s land-defences and construct their own wall of stone to counter the hitherto impregnable Roman land walls, which had thwarted previous sieges by the Sassanid Persians and Avars in 626 and the Muslims in 674-78. A two-part sea and land campaign, this second siege of Constantinople was better organised than the first.

The situation in the coming weeks indeed grew even more dire for the Byzantines. On 1 September, a Muslim armada, which had set-sail from Syria, arrived on the Sea of Marmara on the southern side of the capital. Having learned lessons from their earlier failure, the Umayyad leadership seemed to appreciate that logistics as much as generalship, manpower, weaponry, and fortifications would help to determine the success or failure of the coming attack. Comprised of a combination of 1800 swift war-galleys and lumbering supply-ships (called katanai by the Byzantines) brimming with foodstuffs, animals, and weaponry, the fleet loomed just outside the narrow straight of the Bosphorus that forms part of the continental boundary between Europe and Asia, awaiting the order to advance. The Umayyad’s sought to slowly starve Constantinople into submission by surrounding the city by land and sea before the Byzantine navy could respond. Contemporary sources add the all-to-human detail that the Umayyad financers lingered like hungry vultures, intent on getting a return on their investment, after what they saw as the inevitable storming and looting of one of the pre-modern world’s wealthiest cities. Although the Romans had been readying for the impending attack since 713, the tremendous size of the Muslim force must have caused many to ponder if they— like the other great agrarian Empire in antiquity, Persia, in the mid-seventh century—were about to be swept into the dustbins of history. Little wonder that in a culture that had long linked Rome’s long imperium to God’s favour, many Constantinopolitans supposed that their long-line of defeats at the hands of the Muslims and their own rapidly shrinking territory represented a sign of God’s disfavour.

What we moderns habitually call the Byzantine Empire, but what late antique peoples knew as the res publica or politeia of the Romans, by the dawn of the eighth century was an empire in name only. A combination of war and plague in the sixth and the seventh centuries had seen the lands of the Roman state dwindle to a mere shadow of its former glory. Having in the sixth century recovered imperial lands in North Africa, Italy and Spain lost to the Vandals and the Goths in the fifth century, the emperor Justinian (r. 527-565) controlled well over a million square miles of territory. By the dawn of the eighth century, as James Howard-Johnstone explains, ‘Stripped of most of its Caucasian clients and north Africa as well as its rich Middle Eastern province,’ Byzantium had shrivelled to ‘nothing more than a medium sized power on the north-west flank of the caliphate.’ Constantinople—established by the first Christian Roman emperor Constantine I (r. 306-337) in 324— witnessed a precipitous decline in its population, contracting from a peak of around 500,000 around 500 to perhaps as low as 50,000-60,000 by 700. Yet, Constantinople remained one of the pre-modern world’s preeminent cities. It stood as the seat of imperial power and a holy city famed throughout Christendom for its majestic churches and monasteries overflowing with many of Christianity’s most revered relics. Blessed by its unique position at the cross-roads of Europe and Asia, some sense of the city’s strategic and symbolic importance may be discerned in Sulayman’s proclamation at the outset of the campaign, that he would ‘not cease from the struggle with Constantinople until I conquer it, or I destroy the entire dominion of the Arabs (in trying).’ Backed by the best fighters of his day, a magnificent fleet, and catapults to hurl projectiles and battering rams with which to punch holes into the thickest of walls, it must have seemed clear to Sulayman (Solomon), that he was the great Muslim leader referred to in Islamic prophecy, which declared a leader with a prophet’s name would take the prize of Constantinople for Islam. 

Nevertheless, marching your army and sailing your navies to the outskirts of the Roman capital was one thing, taking ‘fortress’ Constantinople, however, was quite another matter. Constantine had chosen the site on the ruins of the ancient Greek town of Byzantion, in part, for its defensible position. Surrounded on three sides by water, the original fourth-century city walls, which skirted the older parts of the city, had been bolstered in the intervening centuries by a thick layer of defensive walls, towers, and gates on the city’s rapidly expanding outskirts. The Theodosian walls, completed during the reign of Theodosius II (r. 408-450) and repaired and upgraded in the intervening centuries, ran for more than four miles (6.5 kilometres) from the Sea of Marmara in the south to the Golden Horne— an estuary in the north, providing an intimidating barrier on the city’s landward side. Constructed 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometres) from Constantine’s original fortifications, the Theodosian walls functioned as a multi-layered defence system and enclosed the city’s seven hills within 6,400 acres (2,600 hectares) of living area, which included farmlands and several cisterns offering a continuous supply of fresh drinking water. The larger outer-walls and towers were supplemented by a moat and by two inner-walls. The series of towers and slender battlement windows offered the Byzantines a devastating vantage point from which to spray arrows on any approaching enemy. Even if the attackers breached the outer-wall they would find themselves exposed in a 65 foot (c. 20 metres) open area to more withering fire from the inner-walls’ defenders.  Masalama and his men knew all too well, that any frontal assault would come at a heavy cost.

It appears, however, that Masalama hoped that he might not need to storm the city. Multiple Byzantine and Muslim sources explain that the Arab general had an ace up his sleeve. Though elaborated in each subsequent telling, they state that the emperor Leo III (r. 717-41), who was leading the Byzantine resistance from within Constantinople, had made a pact with the Muslims in 715 or 716— when he was general of the Byzantine Province (thema) of Anatolikon in West-central Anatolia—to hand over the imperial city. While the sincerity of Leo’s vow is lost in the sands of time, Leo knew only too well the dangers of taking the Muslims head on. Heavily outnumbered in Anatolia, it made sense that to protect his theme and leave his army intact, Leo would use his wits and familiarity with Islam to feign willingness to capitulate and join the Arab’s cause. Such sentient deviousness would become a hallmark of Leo’s long reign.

 Leo, inaccurately known to history as Leo the Isaurian and somewhat anachronistically as the father of iconoclasm, was born as Konon in the Roman province of Germanikeia (present-day Maras in Southern Turkey) in Northern Syria around 685. Captured by the Arabs around 637, Leo’s hometown had only been recovered by the Byzantines in 683. Brought up in proximity to Islamic Syria, Leo was well-versed in Muslim culture and fighting tactics. Though precise details of his early years remain shadowy, Leo had risen to prominence as a general during the reign of Justinian II (r. 685-95, 707-11).

The early days of Justinian II’s first reign were optimistic ones for the Romans. The combination of their thwarting of the first Arab siege and a subsequent Islamic civil-war from 683-692 had seen the Byzantine’s fortunes improve markedly. Justinian had even led a victorious campaign against the Bulgers in 688-89. Yet, this recovery proved ephemeral. Believing he could re-establish Roman hegemony over the Muslims, the notably eccentric Justinian II’s aggressive policies had stretched the financial limitations of his state and the capabilities of his army, which led to a defeat at the hands of the Umayyads at the Battle of Sebastopol in 692. The rout had seen the East Romans plunged into two decades of civil war and political decline; Constantinopolitans witnessed seven usurpations in twenty-two years. Maslama, who could never rule himself since his mother had been a slave, played a key role in the Muslim’s counter-offensive. In 707-8, he routed a Roman army and destroyed the city of Tyna and enslaved its population. Although one must remain wary of ancient body counts, Arab and Byzantine sources tell us that up to 40,000 Roman soldiers died. From 711-13, Maslama led raids into Byzantine territories, which saw the destruction of the major Roman cities of Amasea and Pisidian Antioch. With the capture of Visigothic Spain in 711, the Muslims had made their first inroads into Europe. The easy success of these campaigns led inevitably to dreams of capturing the irresistibly attractive prize of Constantinople.

Yet, brute force had never been the Caliphate’s sole weapon in its rise; carrot was wielded just as effectively as stick. Peaceful absorption of formerly Roman peoples into the Caliphate had served as one of the Muslim’s most successful tactics since the Islamic armies had thundered out of Arabia as a new religious, military and political force in the first half of the seventh century. After a Muslim army had crushed a Roman force at Yarmuk in 636, many monophysite populations in Syria (636) and Egypt (642) had submitted to Islamic rule with barely a whimper. Such peaceful capitulations were repeated throughout the seventh and early eighth centuries.

Facing complete military and political collapse, surrendering Constantinople to a Caliph who promised peace and prosperity therefore may have seemed at the time to be sound strategy, and not betrayal. Of course, we know that Leo chose resistance.  Fleeing in the face of the Muslim advance, Leo and his Anatolic army after a brief skirmish had defeated soldiers sent by the usurper Theodosius III (r. 715-17) to capture him. Instead, Theodosius’ men raised Leo as emperor. Leo then led the force back to Constantinople on 25 March 717. Leo’s reputation preceded him, and Constantinopolitans seeking a military saviour, received the usurper rapturously. For once they had chosen wisely. After forcing Theodosius III to abdicate, Leo went to work continuing the preparations begun under Anastasius II to shore up the city’s defences, stockpile food, and prepare his warships. He also sought out possible allies. Relying on their shared interests to thwart an ever-expanding Caliphate, Leo enlisted the aid of the Byzantines erstwhile enemies the Bulgars, a wise move that would pay dividends in the coming months.

With a favourable shift of winds, on 3 September the Arab fleet entered the Bosphorus. Once the Arab war-galleys swept past the southern half of the capital largely unhindered, they anchored along Constantinople’s suburbs on the European and Asiatic sides of the capital. The Muslim’s could be forgiven if they thought that the agreement between Leo and Masalama was holding. Hoping to capitalise upon the good conditions and the Byzantine’s failure to engage their warships, the Arabs then crept their bulky supply-ships into the Bosphorus. They were seeking to dock them at a narrow neck of land near the Theodosian walls to unload the men and weaponry by which to begin bashing their way into Constantinople. Leo, however, sprung his trap. Streaming out of the citadel, an attack-force of sleek Byzantine fire-ships pounced upon the lumbering supply ships. Though the Byzantines had used what they called ‘sea fire’ or ‘liquid fire’ to great effect at the first Arab siege of Constantinople, it seems they had refined the weapon in the intervening years. Weighed down by their heavy cargo, the katanai made easy picking for the Byzantine biremes and dromones armed with siphons, which erupted to life with a thunderous roar and spat out with the help of a forced pump— a deadly stream of petroleum-based liquid fire. Able to swivel and aimed with deadly precision by the operator (siphonator) who stood behind a protective bulwark, the jets of sticky flames quickly emolliated men, beasts, supplies, and ships without mercy. Thick plumes of black smoke billowed from the sea as the screams of burning men and animals echoed across the Bosphorus. Still heavily outnumbered by the Arab navy, the Byzantines quickly retreated to the safety of the citadel. That same night, Leo drew up the stout chain between Constantinople that protected the Golden Horn from enemy ships. The ninth-century Byzantine chronicler Theophanes described the disastrous aftermath for the Arab cause: ‘Some of them still burning, smashed into the seawall, while other sank into the sea, men and all, and still others, flaming furiously, went as far off course as the islands of Oxeia and Plateia’ around 20 miles south of Constantinople.

The naval triumph offered a well-needed psychological boost for the outnumbered and dispirited Byzantines. Observing the charred remainders of the Arab fleet, not only buoyed the Constantinopolitans’ spirits, but offered convincing proof that the Virgin Mary—whose icon was held within a church incorporated within the city’s defences—had intervened to save Constantinople in its moment of greatest need, just as she had in 626, when the patriarch Sergius had held her icon in processions along the walls during  that siege’s darkest days. Today most would see this miracle as superstition; to the devout citizens of eighth-century Constantinople it was Providence—proof of the porous boundaries between Heaven and earth. The Arabs, on the other hand, now realised that they faced the prospect of a long siege; Leo and his subjects were not going to meekly submit, but stubbornly resist. Moreover, the ships with much of their food and the bulk of the weapons with which they hoped to batter-down the Byzantine fortifications, now lay at the bottom of the Bosphorus.

Sulayman’s death on 3 October, spared him from learning further bad news. In a further sign to the Romans that God had shifted to their side, that winter was one of the severest on record. In this instance, the besiegers’ suffering far outweighed that of the besieged. Desperately short on food and unable to breach the Byzantine’s fortifications, starvation quickly set-in amongst the Caliphate’s camps. The increasingly desperate Muslim troops who held Nicaea and Nicomedia were harried as they desperately foraged for food by the Bulgars incessant guerrilla attacks. Meanwhile within the spacious confines of Constantinople, the Byzantines found protection from the elements and fed on their stockpiles of foodstuffs, which were more than enough to see them through until spring. Muslim and Byzantines sources explain that the situation grew so desperate that the Arabs ‘had begun to eat dead animals, human corpses, and dung.’ Little wonder then that disease spread rapidly.

Despite the string of setbacks, the new Caliph, Umar II ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz (r. 717-720), had not abandoned hope that Constantinople would fall. He still had a massive numerical superiority and knew that a fresh armada from Africa would resupply his men in the spring. Masalama too was feeding Umar over-optimistic reports from a deteriorating front. Carefully avoiding the reach of the Byzantine fire-ships, the second Arab fleet arrived outside of the city the next spring to resupply the desperate Muslim army. Yet, emblematic of the slow process of Islamisation within the late antique Caliphate, many of the men who manned the Arab ships were Christians who remained the majority in Islamic North Africa. Upon sighting Constantinople, many had fled to the Roman side. These deserters provided Leo with the Arab ships whereabouts, and the emperor led another force of Byzantine raiders, who by employing liquid fire destroyed most of the relieving fleet.

Realising that his men would not survive another winter, Umar ordered a full-withdrawal; Masalama reluctantly pulled out his remaining forces on 15 August.  Yet the voyage home offered little succour. Once again Theophanes offers an account of the Arab’s tribulations: ‘A furious storm fell upon them and scattered them: it came from God at the intercession of His Mother (Mary).’ Those who survived the hail storm, suffered further losses in the wake of a volcanic eruption, which saw a ‘fiery shower’ of rain upon them. All these events offered proof to Theophanes and his readers that ‘God and His all-holy maiden Mother watched over Constantinople and the Empire of the Christians.’

What began as one of Byzantium’s darkest hours, thus concluded as one of Byzantium’s greatest glories. Despite the Byzantine’s comprehensive victory, Leo was wise enough to realise that the Caliphates’ ongoing ability to raise large numbers of men and economic strangle hold on the Middle East and North Africa, meant that they were now the dominate power in the region. To survive the Byzantines would need to abandon suicidal attempts to confront the Muslims head on.  Instead a defensive formula was developed by Leo and fine-tuned by his successors whereby the Byzantines would avoid provoking and, most importantly, fighting set-battles with the Caliphate. Yet, the second Arab siege also offered proof of the Byzantine’s will to survive and élan. Byzantium indeed would not only endure to fight another day, but some of its brightest days lay ahead.

Some Thoughts on Justinian’s Eunuch Commanders

 

 

The sixth-century Byzantine general Narses (478-573) has long earned historians’ respect. This acclaim is deserved since his major victories over the Goths in 552 and versus the Franks and Alamanni in 554, helped to secure the Emperor Justinian I’s (ruled 527-565) reconquest of Italy. So too did Narses perform admirably for twelve years in his role as prefect of Italy. Of course, it has always been important to emphasize that Narses was a eunuch. Indeed, for many modern historians, Narses’ identity as a castrate is more important for study than his military deeds and political achievements that proved ephemeral.

Much of what we know about this seminal eunuch commander derives from the mid-sixth century Byzantine historian Procopius. In today’s, and my next blog I will look at Procopius’ description of some of the possible reasons behind Narses being named as the commander of the Byzantine army that ultimately defeated the Goths.

First, it is important to point out that Narses was not the first eunuch to lead a major military campaign. The eunuch Eutropius had led a successful campaign against the Huns at the close of the fourth century. It seems, however, that the late fourth-century Roman world was not quite ready for a eunuch to take on such a prominent military role. Claudian (ca. 370 – 404 AD) a native Greek-speaker from Alexandria based in Italy crafted a famously hostile portrait of Eutropius.  His gendered invective In Eutropium (Against Eutropius) lambasted the Eastern Romans for allowing an “unmanly” eunuch take on the hyper-masculine duties of a military commander and consul.  Indeed, In Eutropium stands as one of the harshest gendered criticisms of a eunuch to survive from Late Antiquity. Of course, as a propagandist for the Western generalissimo Stilicho, Claudian was naturally a bit over the top in his denigration of a rival from a then hostile Eastern half of the Empire. It is important to point out, however, that several Eastern sources (e.g. Eunapius frag. 65. 1-7, Zosimus, 5.38-18, Marcellinus Comes, 396) criticize Eutropius with similar hostile rhetoric. For a discussion of the gendered aspects of Claudian’s vilification of Eutropius, see (Kuefler, 2001: 65-7, 69, 97-100). (Again

Though the sources are by no means clear it seems that with the exception of the emperor Zeno’s sacellarius Paul who served as a joint-commander of a fleet sent against Illus, no eunuch served in a high military position until the reign of Justinian (ruled 527-565) in the sixth century. Narses is one of three eunuchs to guide Eastern Roman armies. Many scholars have seen this growth as a sign of a lessoning of hostility towards eunuchs in this period. Shaun Tougher sees Procopius’ and Agathias’ flattering views of Narses as an indication of “a lessoning of hostility towards eunuchs” from the fifth century. Contemporary and later Byzantine sources are almost unanimously respectful of Narses’ military prowess, see e.g. John Malalas, Chronicle 484, 486, Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History 4.24, John of Ephesus, Church History 3.1.39. Though mostly missing, the sixth-century Byzantine historian Menander’s account (e.g. frag. 30) may have given a less flattering portrait of Narses’ final years in Italy— none of the surviving fragments, however, suggest that this criticism was gender based.  Some later Western sources are more negative and, at times, gendered.  A section of the Liber Pontificalis (63.3), probably composed around 630, criticized Narses and the Byzantines’ rule of Italy. The author recorded an incident where a sixth-century Italian complained that it would be better “for the Romans to serve the Goths than the Greeks when the eunuch Narses is a ruler who subjects us to slavery and our most pious prince does not know it.” Cf. a similar attitude preserved in Paul the Deacon’s eighth-century History of the Lombards (2.5). Though, it is important to point out that both Western sources above recognised and described Narses’ virtues as well (Liber Pontificalis, 61.8, History of the Lombards, 2.3). Gregory of Tours sixth-century History of the Franks, whilst crediting Narses for some of his military success in Italy (4.9), exaggerates the eunuch’s difficulties against the Franks in Italy (3.32), and accuses him of murdering associates to protect his fortune (5.19). A more positive attitude towards Narses is found in the chronicle of Gregory’s contemporary Marius of Avenches. Most importantly this source makes no mention of Narses’ supposed invitation of the Lombards into Italy as a consequence of his poor relations with the emperor Justin II and the empress Sophia that is first mentioned in the chronicle of Isidore composed in 616. Historians have dismissed this assertion as anachronistic. Importantly for our purposes these sources painted Narses’ “betrayal” in a sympathetic light. Indeed, it is the lack of respect on the part of the empress towards Narses that drives his revenge.

 

Okay now back to the rise of military eunuchs in the sixth century. The eunuch Solomen who served in Justinian’s Vandalic campaign in the 530s, in fact, was only the second eunuch that we know of since Eutropius to serve as a military commander. Solomon (e.g. Wars 4.11.47-56), served as magister militum and praetorian prefect of Africa. Scholasticus (Wars 7.40.5) was commander of an army sent against the Sklalvenoi. Procopius showed Solomon, leading his cavalry into battle. I would suggest that Solomon, in fact, offers better proof than Narses of Procopius’ acceptance of eunuchs in positions of military high command. Though, Procopius differentiated Solomon from man-made eunuchs by emphasising that his castration resulted from a childhood accident.  Solomen’s successes may have paved the rode for Narses who had already proven his loyalty and political, fighting and diplomatic skills to the emperor.

Most scholars assume that Procopius had generally a positive attitude towards Narses. Certainly, as Shaun Tougher has pointed out to me, it is important that Narses does not appear in Procopius’ notorious Anecdota. If procopius was hosile towards Narses or wanted to condemn Justinian as a destroyer of Roman traditions by using an unmanly eunuch as a military commander this would have been the place. Yet we hear nothing.Though in Wars Procopius depicted Narses, at times, as vain, jealous, insubordinate, petty, and overly reliant on barbarian auxiliaries, I agree that the historian generally respected Narses for being a successful and resourceful commander.[1] Yet it does not appear that Procopius took Narses’ position as a general for granted. Procopius presented Narses “as an anomalous example” of a typical eunuch.[2] When Narses arrived to Italy from Constantinople with a large army, the historian proclaimed that the eunuch was more “keen and more energetic than would be expected of a eunuch [ἄλλως δὲ ὀξὺς καὶ μαλλον ἠ κατ ευνοῡχον δραστήριος].”[3] This attitude would seem to reject one recent assertion from a noted Byzantinist to me that despite the rhetoric eunuchs were seen as male in sex and gender even in Late Antiquity.

 

Well that it for today, tomorrow I will delve into Procopius’ Wars for an in-depth analysis of Procopius description of Narses being named commander of the Byzantine army after the death of the former commander, Justinian’s cousin Germanus in 550. Why might one ask is such an exploration view important? Because Procopius’ attitude towards Narses can explain much about Procopius “true” attitudes to both his former mentor the general Belisarius, and the military campaigns of Justinian as a whole.

 

[1] As Averil Cameron and Anthony Kaldellis propose (Cameron, 1985: 203, 239), (Kaldellis, 2004: 217), Procopius’ portrait of Narses appears more nuanced, and in places, less “positive” than Tougher or Ringrose indicates. For these “negative” qualities see, Wars 6.18.11, 6.18.28-29, 6.19.18., 8.23.17-20. For “positive” traits, see Wars 6.13.16, 8.26.5, 8.26.14, 8.31.22, 8.35.36.

 

[2](Ringrose, 2003: 132).

 

[3] Procopius, Wars 6.13.16-17 (trans. Dewing). Eunuch commanders after Narses continued to face hostile gendered rhetoric. See e.g., the eleventh-century historian, John Skylitzes (A Synopsis of Byzantine History16.8 [324]) recording a Byzantine rebel commanders snide remark that facing a non-eunuch rival general, “for the first time the fight would be against a true soldier, one who knew well how to conduct military operations with courage and skill; not, as formerly, against pitiful fellows, eunuchs, fostered in the chamber and raised in the shade.” One suspects that Narses would have faced similar gendered criticism if he had been defeated in battle by the Goths.

 

New Views on the Vandals: Were they just a well-read Ancient Outlaw Motorcycle Gang?

 

 

 

 

Reader’s of this blog will be aware of my fascination with the ways that foreign peoples like the Goths and Vandals adopted notions of masculine Romanitas to define themselves in the fifth and sixth centuries. It is rare to find a book that touches on these issues. Recently I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of Andy Merrills’ and Richard Miles’ fascinating 2010 study  on the Vandals. Despite a few strange errors: e.g, describing the Generalissimo Boniface’s death in battle against Aetius in 432 as a murder; And a sure misprint that states that Marcian not Leo I was organizing the combined campaign against the Vandals in 468— the study has much to offer the scholar and general reading public unfamiliar with the giant strides made recently concerning these non-Roman peoples and their successor kingdoms. Indeed, this is the first major work on the Vandals since 1955.

Merrills’ learned discussion on the complex controversies surrounding how the Vandals defined themselves as a separate ethnic identity represented a highlight for me. Relying of the vast amount of work done in the past forty years  on Late Antique ethnicity he provides a narrative of fifth and sixth-century Vandalic history that is insightful, instructive, and at times original.

Merrils sees peoples like the Vandals as  a gens made up largely of mixed military elites rather than the vast groups of homogeneous migratory tribes favoured in the older historiographical tradition. Yes, he maintains, members of these men’s families may have travelled with them, but at the core they were a warrior band (a bit in my mind like modern outlaw motorcycle gangs). Though they created some localized mayhem when they entered Gaul in 406, they were certainly not a threat to the Empire. They had merely found a small niche in an early fifth-century Western Europe racked by civil wars. As M makes so clear during these early years these men were perceived as more of a pest than a threat even to the weakened Western Roman Empire.

M writes (49): “The Vandals, Alans and Suaves, were an army on the move, and presumably brought women and children along with them. It might have been a small army, and it might have been better at plundering than it was at fighting. But for the early years of the fifth century at least, the Vandals were defined primarily by their military character.”

Because of the fluidity of both Roman and Vandal identity, for M, the second stage of their existence upon entry into Spain must be looked at separately.

Using the latest archaeological research, M maintains that the destructive nature of groups like the Vandals has been exaggerated by both ancient and modern scholars. Indeed, Spain in this period remained a relatively thriving place. Their first victory over a Roman army in 422 represented the most important event in Vandal history. It was this victory that made them the Vandals that we study. Like, the Huns…or indeed a modern Biker gangs or Isis, this victory seems to have drawn more recruits, who quickly were absorbed into the confederation.

Opportunity, rather than necessity or long term planning, is seen by M as the primary factor behind the Vandals move into Africa. Victory was achieved not so much by might of arms, but due to the turmoil and rivalries that plagued the Roman armies defending North Africa.

Once they arrived in Africa in 429, men who called themselves Vandals quickly emerged as a new military aristocracy. It was only then, according to M, that it became a necessity for these men to develop a “distinct Vandal identity” (91). Though a shared history seemed to be an important aspect of crafting an ethnic identity in Late Antiquity, unlike the Goths, Lombards, and Franks, the Vandals never produced a work explaining this shared history. This does not mean, however, that they did not percieve themselves to be an ethnicity on par with peoples like the Goths.

Though the boundaries between those considered Romans and Vandals throughout this period could be blurry and fluid, M posits both natives and outsiders like Procopius could distinguish between a “Roman” and a “Vandal”. Language was one way. Vandalic, an offshoot of Gothic, could serve as ethnic marker, but as M points out after years of occupation those considered Romans could understand Vandalic, and more and more Vandals understood and indeed used Latin on an everyday basis.

So too, if we trust our sources, were certain types of weapons, clothing, and long-hairstyles a marker of Vandalic identity. Once again I reminded about how all these same things held to define and outlaw biker. Indeed, just like a banned or re-patched biker, M shows that Vandals getting kicked out of the clan had to give up their clothing and get a haircut. Of course this does not mean that a Roman could not become a Vandal and vica versa.

These definitions, however, were not steadfast, and M is rightly hesitant to see the Vandalic era as one of gradual decline, whereas  as Procopius told it, the originally virile Vandalic elite gradually succumbed to the soft side of Roman civilization. Here is a brief aside from my MA thesis on the process.

While associating with Roman culture could uplift foreign peoples, “civilized” living could also make them unmanly and cowardly. Procopius emphasized that the Eastern Romans’ easy victory over the Vandals resulted from the North Africans’ abandonment of the “hard” life of the barbarian for the “soft” life of Roman civilization:

For of all the nations which we know that of the Vandals is the most luxurious, and that of the Moors the hardiest. For the Vandals, since the time when they gained possession of Libya, used to indulge in baths, all of them, every day, and enjoyed a table abounding in all things, the sweetest and the best that the earth and sea produce. And they wore gold very generally, and clothed themselves in Medic garments, which now they call “seric” [silk] and passed their time, thus dressed, in theatres and hippodromes and in other pleasurable pursuits, and above all else in hunting. And they had dancers and mimes and all other things to hear or see which are of a musical nature or otherwise merit attention among men. And most of them dwelt in parks, which were well supplied with water and trees; and they had great number of banquets, and all manner of sexual pleasures were in great vogue among them.

Procopius, who indicated that the Eastern Romans had begun the reconquest of North Africa with a sense of trepidation, seemed surprised with the Vandals’ adoration of luxurious living.19 One is reminded of the earlier Greek tradition that portrayed barbarians as particularly vulnerable to civilization’s temptations. Now, however, it was the lure of Roman culture that threatened the valor of the Vandals. This description matches Procopius’ condemnation, in the Secret History,of Constantinople’s citizens’ growing moral depravity; his account of the Vandals may have served as a warning to his readership that a lavish lifestyle led to moral decay, and that only by following an ascetic lifestyle could men preserve their physical and spiritual well-being.

 

Historians have largely followed Procopius’ views. M rightly points out that the truth was much more nuanced.

Indeed, M’s most important point and contribution in this study is his undermining of the entire idea that the Vandals were gradually amalgamated into North African society by the process known as Romanization.

M sees the entire concept of Romanization as a simplification of a much more complicated process. M posits that while “The Vandal aristocracy of the fifth-century Africa was quite unlike anything the inhabitants of the region had ever seen before….it was still an aristocracy which had adopted more or less recognizable form”

“The most striking feature of our textual sources on Vandal identity”, he continues, “is the extent to which it was shaped by existing notions of Romanitas, and particularly by ideals of Roman masculinity. (97-98)

Okay readers of my work will know that this is a model of men’s self-fashioning that I argue for in my dissertation. Martial virtues along with more civilised intellectual virtues continued to make up a major part of Roman identity. Romanitas itself was susceptible to fluidity, and as I have suggested, more martial forms of masculinity become more prevalent from the fifth century. This is the exact opposite of what some gender scholars have argued. So perhaps this helps to explain why I like M’s conclusions so much!

M shows how Vandalic literature and art conflated classical and Vandalic military ideals; Vandalic behaviour was often very similar to Roman behaviour. Put more simply, Vandalic and Roman military elite’ behaviour was very similar long before the Vandals had ever entered North Africa. He concludes that just as the idea of a pure Vandalic identity has been rightly dismissed, so too should the concept of “Vandal Romanization” be rejected.

Another interesting point made by M is his contention that Vandalic identity as constructed in our ancient evidence seems to have been a largely masculine construct. He suggests (107):

“Definitive features of Vandalic identity were overwhelmingly masculine. ‘Vandals’ were primarily soldiers, administrators or landlords who held their land by right of male inheritance, who governed and fought on behalf of their Hasding kings and who assumed the engendered trappings of the late Roman aristocracy.

This is not say that there were no Vandal women….. only that they could easily fade away or like Procopius tells us take on another identity quite quickly.

This view, however, appears to be Vandal-specific as we do have plenty of indications of Gothic women.

 

Once again, I would add that like the modern biker gang, women remain on the periphery of the overall construct. So too do biker gangs adopt a hypermasculine identity, tattoos, strippers, and massively steroid enhanced physiques. Modern day Vandals indeed…..though we can only hope that these modern gang members take up bathing and classical literature that helped to define a North African Vandal!

 

Vale!

 

 

18 Procopius, Wars 4.6.5-8.

19 Procopius, Wars 3.10.16.

 

The dichotomy between Varys and Oberyn: Why Martin’s Eunuchs have no sex drive

 

 

One of the most interesting parts of last night’s Game of Thrones episode was the conversation between the hot-blooded Prince of Dorne Oberyn and the calculating eunuch spymaster Varys. These men represent a sexual ying and yang. Oberyn is a bi-sexual animal romping his way to revenge. Varys castrated as a youth is sexless. When Oberyn asks him if he preferred boys before his castration, Varys answers that he had always preferred neither gender proclaiming that “The absence of desire leaves one free to pursue other things,” Varys then looks at the Iron Throne.

Spoiler Alert!

Readers of the books know that Varys here is foreshadowing coming events.

Back to the unspoiled section!

As I commented in an earlier blog Martin plucks his notions of eunuchs from Late Roman and Byzantine history. Indeed, notice that M’s eunuchs are all Easterners. Since making eunuchs was illegal in the Roman Empire  most eunuchs from this period like the famous sixth-century Narses were non-Roman Easterners. During the Byzantine period, however, castration served as a means of incapacitating one’s rivals as well. It is intersting as well that during the Goth’s Theoderic’s rule over Italy in the sixth-century we see Gothic eunuchs serving within his court.

 

However, as I also mentioned in the earlier blog the notion that castration cuts-off one’s sex drive is not true in all cases. Men like Varys castrated after they reached puberty to borrow the words of Mathew Kuefler (Manly Eunuch, 34) “retained their secondary sex characteristics and probably also their sexual desires.” So you can have bearded eunuchs. As the sixth-century Byzantine chronicler John Malalas (363) tells us it also explains why you can have handsome eunuchs.

It also helps us understand why a common idea found in anti-eunuch rhetoric is the idea that they had an insatiable appetite for men and women….though they of course they had to be inventive…So Varys would have had to have been castrated before reaching puberty to lack facial and bodily hair as well as to have a lack of sex drive. Though he is indeed correct that many Christians believed that once humans entered heaven they became a genderless being. This helps to explain why in much Byzantine art angels are displayed as looking like eunuchs.

In androcentric cultures like Rome and early Byzantium the seeming gender ambiguity of eunuchs could be troubling.[i] As Kathryn Ringrose explains, “The appearance and behaviour of eunuchs represented the antithesis of appropriate male behaviour. The eunuch was scorned as shameful, neither man nor woman, a monstrosity, an outsider, and pitifully womanlike.”[ii] We find this sentiment is expressed in the observation by the fourth-century panegyrist Claudius Mamertinus that eunuchs were “exiles from the society of the human race, belonging to neither one sex nor the other as a result of some congenital abnormality or physical injury.”[iii] The very ease by which a man could quite literally be cut off from the “source” of his sexual identity troubled many Late Roman writers. At the opening of the fifth century the poet Claudian quipped that the knife makes “males womanish.”[iv] It seemed a very simple process indeed for a man to become a non-man. As Peter Brown remarks, “The physical appearance and the reputed character of eunuchs acted as constant reminders that the male body was a fearsomely plastic thing.”[v]

 

The notion that eunuchs represented either a third sex or third gender must not be taken too far, I would agree with the noted Byzantinist Warren Treadgold’s assertion that most of the time they were seen as simply men. This helps to explain why, unlike women, they were able to serve within the Church and military. Indeed, castration may not have kept some eunuchs from aspiring to become emperors themselves. Narses, after his victories over the Goths and Franks in Italy, became the defacto ruler of a revived Western Roman Empire for twelve years.

The exarchs of Rome whom served as political and military leaders in Italy in the seventh and eighth centuries were often eunuchs. One may suggest that these men were appointed because they would not usurp control from their Eastern leader. This, however, did not keep one eunuch-exarch if the sources are believed from attempting to name himself as Western Emperor.

During a low-point in the Byzantine Empire’s climatic battle against the Persians, the emperor Heraclius had sent in 615 or 616 the patrician and cubicularis the eunuchEleutherios to revenge the murder of the former exarch of Ravenna. The new exarch went to Naples and killed the usurper John. After a defeat at the hands of the Lombards, he signed a treaty with the Lombard King Agilulf.

In 619, the western Book of Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis) tells us that Eleutherios attempted to have himself named as Western Emperor, but was killed as he moved to take Rome.

Whether this account is to be believed is not too relevant to our discussion. On the other hand it is what our source does not say is surprising. Written about a decade after these events the biographer plainly sees it as possible that a eunuch could be named as emperor. Though hostile to Byzantine political aims….no gendered invective is used. Eleutherios is just depicted as an individual playing upon the eastern Emperor’s difficulties in the East against the Persians to carve his own way to the purple.

So is it possible that Martin could have Varys strive to take the throne of Westeros himself? Depends how deeply he has read his Byzantine history. So far his portrayal of eunuchs seems based on only a limited hostile ancient rhetoric. The possibilities found in the less hostile ancient sources are enticing.

 

[i] For the centrality of the masculine in Rome and Byzantium, see (Williams, 1999); (Kuefler, 2001); (McDonnell, 2006); (Conway, 2008); (Stewart, 2012).

 

[ii] (Ringrose, 2003: 12). On how the increased prevalence of eunuchs in both halves of the Empire during the fourth and fifth centuries provided writers with a means to comment on a perceived crisis of masculinity, see (Kuefler, 2001: 31-36).

 

[iii] Claudius Mamertinus, Speech of Thanks to Julian 19.4.

 

[iv] Claudian, In Eutropium 1.48.

 

[v] (Brown, 1988: 10).

 

Rhetoric versus Reality: A Comment on the Byzantines adulation of Warfare

 

 

 

 

There is tendency in much of the modern scholarship on Byzantium to emphasise the role that Christianity played in their everyday lives. What follows is my brief reply answering  how and why  these devout Byzantines were so able to largely ignore the Church Father’s notions of a just war. He writes:

Byzantine theological notion that war, while sometimes necessary or “just” in cause, is actually UNJUST by nature. This view was certainly held in the Patristic era and is reflected in the Canons of St. Basil. (Maybe he intends to imply that the Patristic teaching wasn’t well. But unless I missed something, there doesn’t seem to be any mention of the Byzantine theological distinction that war is sometimes just or necessary in “cause,” but is never really just by “nature.” This seems to be reflected in the Patristic corpus (e.g., in the Canons of St. Basil). Maybe that notion never really amounted to anything PRACTICALLY, but eventually it seemed to even be echoed by the State (even if later on, perhaps). So, unless I’m being hasty or off-point, or I missed something… why is this not even mentioned?

My response

One might argue that  even average educated Byzantines were not that familiar with the works of the Church Fathers, say in comparison to Thucydides, certainly warfare is a feature of much of the literature created for the Byzantine court: e.g. Procopius, Agathias….it is easy to forget that despite its Christianisation, the Byzantine Empire had become more militarized in the sixth and seventh centuries compared to the previous two centuries. Though even classicising historians made it clear that peace was preferable to war, they tended to glorify warfare and soldiers and see the battlefield as a place where men and the Roman states proved themselves. As a Byzantine scholar reminded me recently, It is too easily forgotten that the Christian God was chosen by Constantine as a God of Battles, and that there are plenty of exempla of heroic warriors and much smiting of enemies in the Old Testament Gideon, Samson, David, and Maccabees.
Indeed, Heraclius’ propaganda against the Persians that amalgamated Christian and classical themes preferred militant Old Testament passages and imagery. Indeed, writers like the fifth-century historian Eunapius tells us about a Christian mural in Milan that depicted the hand of God striking down the Empire’s enemies. One of my favourite passage from Theophylact is when he has the Bishop Domitianus of Melitene explain to a group of soldiers headed off to fight the Persians: “Let no one receive a scar on his back: the back is incapable of seeing victory. In the contest be united in spirit more than body, comrades in toils but not in cowardice. Let him who has not taken up the inheritance of danger be disowned. In death reach out for victory. Trophies are bought with wounds and blows. Sloth brings no glory. There is nothing sweeter than death in war, for if there is no advantage in growing old and being struck down by wasting disease, assuredly it is more appropriate for you heroes to die in the battle-line while you are young, reaping glory in your tombs.”

The Gothic king Athalaric (ruled 526-534)

 

 

 

 

The Gothic king Athalaric’s (ruled 526-534) reign has often been seen as the beginning of the end for Gothic rule in Italy (e.g. McEvoy [2013: 328], Heather [2013:149-51]). In today’s blog I offer a discussion on the mid-sixth century historian Procopius’ famous digression on the disputes surrounding Athalaric’s education. Like yesterday’s blog, it has been adapted from my 2013 dissertation The Soldier’s Life: Martial Virtues and Hegemonic Masculinity in the Early Byzantine Empire.

For Procopius, Theoderic’s strong leadership helped to unify the Goths. So too had the king largely succeeded in maintaining the bond between Italians and Goths. The historian’s descriptions of the king’s flawed successors revealed the difficulty of maintaining this unity.

Theoderic had planned originally to have his son-in-law Eutharic succeed him. The Visigoth Eutharic was named consul in 518, and most significantly in 519 he held this office with the Eastern Emperor Justin as his colleague. Though the date is unclear, Eutharic died sometime in the early 520s. Before his own death, Theoderic had named his ten-year-old grandson Athalaric as his heir, and appointed his daughter and the boy’s mother Amalasuintha, as regent.[1] Many within the Gothic aristocracy had a difficult time accepting a dynastic succession dependent solely on the Amal line.[2] So too have some historian’s recently linked the prominent philosopher Boethius and his father-in-law Symmachus’ “treasonous plotting with Constantinople” and subsequent executions to Theoderic naming Athalaric as his heir.[3] Some historians (e.g. O’Donnell) even claim that Boethius sought to name himself Western emperor.

Yet, in Procopius’ telling, the early years of Amalasuintha’s regency were a relatively peaceful and stable time for Italy.[4] Amalasuintha sought to restore harmonious relations between the Goths and the Romans by distancing herself from some of less tolerant policies of Theoderic’s final years (proof too that Procopius’ praise of Theoderic may not have been completely heart-felt). Procopius declared that she protected the Romans from the Goths’ “mad desire to wrong them” [ξυνεχώρησεν ἐςτὴνἐκείνουςἀδικίανὀργῶσιν]. Additionally, she attempted to reconcile herself to the senate by returning Symmachus’ and Boethius’ confiscated lands to their families.[5] Amalasuintha and her supporters reigned supreme, yet trouble lurked in the hearts of Gothic men spurned by the new regime.[6]

Procopius compressed the ten-year period of Athalaric’s rule into a didactic tale that appears to unfold over a much shorter time-frame.[7] According to Procopius, the struggle began as a dispute over the proper way to educate Athalaric. Amalasuintha felt compelled to raise the boy as a Roman aristocrat.[8] She sent him to a Roman school of letters and hired three “prudent and refined” [ξυνετούς τε καὶἐπιεικεῖς, 5.2.7] Gothic tutors to further educate the future king. Procopius illustrated how this decision created a backlash among some members of the Gothic nobility who wanted to raise the boy in “the barbarian fashion”. He wrote:

 

All the notable men among them gathered together, and coming before Amalasuintha made the charge that their king was not being educated correctly from their point of view nor to his own advantage. For letters, they said, are far removed from manliness [ἀνδρίας], and the teaching of old men results for the most part in a cowardly [δειλὸν] and submissive spirit. Therefore the man who is to show daring [τολμητήν] in any work and be great in renown ought to be freed from the timidity [φόβου] which teachers inspire and to take his training in arms. . . . ‘Therefore, O Queen’, they said, ‘have done with these tutors now, and do you give Athalaric some men of his own age to be his companions, who will pass through the period of youth with him and thus give him an impulse toward that excellence [τὴνἀρετὴν], which is in keeping with the custom of barbarians’.

The “martial” faction emphasised the “dangers” of a literary education by claiming that Theoderic had refused to allow the Goths to send their children to school; they suggested that he took this stance because he believed that a literary education would cause them “to despise sword or spear”.[9] One assumes that Procopius and his contemporary audience were aware of the illogic of this argument, since Procopius tells his audience about Theoderic’s daughter Amalasuintha’s and his nephew Theodahad’s excellent classical educations.[10] Moreover, the hardliners ultimately supported the unmanly Plato-loving Theodahad.[11] While this discrepancy and other incongruences in his history may be the result of Procopius’ heavy emphasis on rhetorical themes and disregard for the “truth”, it is also possible that he purposefully has the “martial” Goths tell a known non-truth. As we will see throughout the remainder of this essay, Procopius often utilised such inaccuracies in his set-speeches as a means of later undermining the speakers’ overall argument.

In this stylised episode, Procopius transformed an internal Gothic power struggle into a didactic debate about the proper way to educate young men. While he simplified a complex political dispute, Procopius provided his audience with the differences—real and imagined—between Roman and Gothic methods and beliefs about the best way to transform boys into manly men.[12] Each of the Gothic factions suggested that boys travelled a long and hazardous path to manhood. The two sides only differed on the best methods to overcome these obstacles. The “conservatives” preached that in order to instil courage in a young man, he needed to be surrounded by companions of a similar age and “take his training in arms”, while Amalasuintha and the Goths presumably following Roman traditions, focused on the development of a boy’s mind.[13] Despite its obvious rhetorical aspects, this episode has some historical basis. Evidence from the Gothic side supports Procopius’ characterisation of Amalasuintha as an aficionado of Roman literature. For example, in a letter to the Roman senate, Amalasuintha espoused the benefits of a Roman education by suggesting that literary learning allowed the warrior to discover “what will strengthen him with courage; the prince learns how to administer his people with equity”.[14]  In the Greco-Roman literary tradition even innate virtues like ἀνδρεία and one’s martial skills could be enhanced by a literary education.[15] Although we know very little about what constituted a “Gothic” education, we do know that officers’ children received substantial military training, and that the upper echelon of Gothic society embraced the soldier’s life.[16]

Evidence from the remainder of Athalaric’s biography appears to show that Procopius rejected the barbarians’ idea that a young man’s curriculum should involve military training alone. Procopius, in fact, responded to the barbarians’ claims about the unmanliness of a Roman education, by demonstrating how Athalaric’s exposure to the “customs of the barbarians” produced a “failed man”.Fearing her political rivals, Amalasuintha dismissed the tutors and replaced them with a group of Gothic boys who, like Athalaric, “had not yet come of age”.[17] Predictably, in Procopius’ view, this decision proved disastrous. Instead of providing Athalaric with an inclination towards manly ἀρετή, his comrades only enticed the future king “to drunkenness and to intercourse with women” [μέθην καì γυναικῶνμίξεις], qualities that in the classical tradition represented typical vices of not only barbarians, but of unmanly men as well.[18] For Procopius, Athalaric’s inability to control both his drinking and sexual appetites marked him as flawed—and ultimately—as an unmanly man.

Procopius closed his didactic tale by showing how Athalaric, having abandoned Amalasuintha and a “civilised” way of life, fell victim to this “debauched” Gothic lifestyle and died of a wasting disease brought on by the overindulgence in wine and the relentless pursuit of women.[19] Procopius highlighted the folly of permitting mere boys to educate a future king about manly ἀρετή. Torn between two worlds, Athalaric fell short of becoming either a Gothic warrior or a cultivated Roman aristocrat. I would suggest, however, that this account is less a tale about the “impossibility” of amalgamating “Roman” and “Gothic” ideals, as has been suggested by one recent study,[20] but more a way of comparing and contrasting  the martial and manly qualities of the Romans and the Goths. We shall see that each time a Goth made a claim of masculine and martial superiority, shortly after Procopius “proved” the assertion patently false. One may observe this paradigm in the case of Athalaric. Ultimately, in Procopius’ mind, it was his “barbarian” and not his “classical” education that turned Athalaric into a leader with an unmanly lack of self-control.

 

 

 

[1] Amalasuintha was the daughter of Theoderic’s second wife Audofleda, the sister of the Merovingian king Clovis. For a description of Eutharic, see now Arnold, Restoration, 43, 86, 215-218, 296.

 

[2] P. Heather, The Goths. Oxford, 1996, 250-55. For the last years of Theoderic’s reign as a turbulent period in Italo-Roman and Goth relations, see Moorhead, Totila, 216-18. For a less pessimistic vision, see Arnold, Restoration, 296-97.

 

[3]McEvoy, Child Emperor Rule, 327-28.

 

[4] Procopius tells (Wars 7.21.12) his readers that by 550 many Goths recalled the years of Theoderic’s and Athalaric’s rule fondly.

 

[5] Proc.,Wars 5.2.5-6.

 

[6] Herwig Wolfram claims (History of the Goths, trans. Thomas Dunlap. Berkeley 1999) that these men were Gothic hardliners who took a tough stance against Constantinople. He suggests that members of this faction, who probably included Theodahad among its members, realised by late 532/early 533 that they needed to gain control over Athalaric before he reached his majority.  It remains, of course, difficult to know how much of Procopius’ depiction is based on actual events.  Procopius revealed (Wars 5.4.12-13) that Theodahad had initiated a coup in 535 with the support of the relatives of the large numbers of Goths who had been slain by Amalasuintha and her followers.

 

[7] Discussed in Amory, People and Identity, 156.

 

[8] For further contemporary evidence of Amalasuintha’s adulation of classical learning, see Cassiodorus, Variae 10.3.

 

[9] Proc., Wars 5.2.11-17.

 

[10] The sixth-century historian John Malalas (Chronicle, 15.9) tells us that Theoderic had received an education during his years in Constantinople, a point that Procopius, with his focus on the Gothic king’s early embracing of Byzantine culture, may have been aware of. So too does Theoderic’s panegyrist Ennodius (Panegyricus dictus Theoderico 3.11) make it clear that Theoderic had received an education in Constantinople. Cf. Theophanes (AM 5977). Contra  Anon. Valesiani 12.61.

 

[11] I would like to thank Jonathan Arnold (pers. comm.) for highlighting this particular point for me.

 

[12] Of course, many young men from the Byzantine literate classes would have received military training as well. On the increasing militarization of the sixth-century ruling class, see Conor Whately, Militarization, or the Rise of a Distinct Military Culture? The East Roman Elite in the 6^th Century AD, in: Stephen O’Brien and Daniel Boatright, eds. Warfare and Society in the Ancient Mediterranean: Papers arising from a colloquium held at the University of Liverpool, 13^th June 2008. Oxford, 2013, 49-57.

[13] Proc., Wars 5.2.11-17.

 

[14] Cass., Variae, 10.3 (trans. Barnish).

 

[15] J. Connolly, Like the labors of Heracles: Andreia and Paideia in Greek Culture under Rome, in:R. Rosen and I. Sluiter, eds. Andreia: Studies in Manliness and Courage in Classical Antiquity. Boston 2003, 287, 328.

 

[16] Amory, People and Identity, 96. For the Goths’ military ethos, see Heather, The Goths, 322-26, M. Whitby, Armies and Society in the Later Roman World, in: A. Cameron, B. Ward-Perkins and Michael Whitby, eds. CAH Volume XIV. Cambridge 2000, 472.

 

[17] Proc., Wars 5.2.18-20.

 

[18] Proc., Wars 5.2.19. Athalaric’s alcoholism is hinted at in the Variae of Cassiodorus, see S.J.B. Barnish, introduction to Variae, 16. Procopius revealed that an addiction “to the disease of drunkenness” [μέθης νόσῳ] was particularly prevalent among barbarian peoples (Wars 4.4.29, 6.1.28, 7.27.5-6). This point is illustrated when Procopius praised the Herul Pharas for his energetic and serious nature, but noted sarcastically: “For aHerulian not to give himself over to treachery and drunkenness, but to strive after uprightness, is no easy matter and deserves abundant praise (Wars 4.4.29)”. The susceptibility of barbarian armies to drunkenness served as a topos in classical literature. This drunkenness made “barbarians” unreliable soldiers. For instance, Polybius (Histories 11.3) partly blamed the Carthaginians’ defeat in Spain on the Gauls’ drunken state during the battle of Metauras (207 BCE).

 

[19] Proc., Wars 5.4.4.

 

[20] Kaldellis, Procopius of Caesarea, 108.

 

The Gothic King…or is that Western Roman emperor….. Theoderic (ruled 489/93-526)

 

 

 

 

 

The Gothic King…or is that Western Roman emperor….. Theoderic (ruled 489/93-526) has received a great deal of scholarly attention in the past year. Peter Heather (The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes & Imperial Pretenders [London: MacMillan, 2013]) devotes several chapters to the Amal rex.  So too has Cambridge University Press published two major studies on Theoderic in the past year alone: Sean Lafferty’s Law and Society in the Age of Theoderic the Great: A study of the Edictum Theoderici (2013) and Jonathan Arnold’s Theoderic and the Roman Restoration. Though both studies have done much to advance Theoderican studies their bipolar presentations of Theoderic will probably leave graduate students assigned these works confused.

On the one hand, Lafferty presents a traditional vision of Theoderican Italy as one of several post-Roman worlds. His Theoderic is a barbarian rex dressed in Roman clothing. Theoderic’s Italy is seen by L as bit of a magician”s trick, heavy on rhetoric, but based on a much more humble and depressing reality. Despite his claims to the contrary, in L’s (20) mind, Theoderic was unable to solve most of Italy’s structural problems. L points out rightly that our major source for the reign, Cassiodorus’ Variae, “do not necessarily reflect conditions as they were”. Under the Goths Italy was becoming increasingly militarized and he sees a merging of the civilian and military branches of the Italo-Roman government (101-102). L does find that in “Ostrogothic” Italy that “the integrity of the judicial system were the same as in the Later Roman Empire. He concludes, however, that the Ostrogoths offered Italo-Romans and Goths a watered down version of Roman law and justice.  Ultimately Theoderic, in L’s mind, was a bit of a charlatan. While recognising Theoderic’s ability “to mask these problems behind a rhetoric of Roman renewal that stressed continuity between his reign an those of other great Emperors like Trajan or Valentinian.” He believes that the ordinary citizen was worse off, unable to overcome the inherent biases that favoured the rich and the well-connected and marked by a failure of “judges who were unable or unwilling to enforce the King’s laws.”(155).

On the other hand, Jonathan Arnold accepts Theoderic’s rhetoric hook, line and sinker. Arnold, (90) goes so far to say “Theoderic’s reign…constituted much more than simply that of a king along the same lines as Odovacer or other ‘barbarian’ kings of the West. He was a princeps Romanus, or Roman emperor, acknowledged as such by his own subjects and presented as such, though in a deferential and conciliatory manner, to the East.” The “glorious” opening decades of Theoderic’s rule were nothing less than the rebirth of the Western Roman Empire. Instead of being ruled by unmanly Greek emperors from the East like Anthemius, the effeminized fifth-century Italo-Romans had been both rescued and reinvigorated by the manly Goths, cast by men like Ennodius and Cassiodorus as “new” Romans draped in traditional Roman martial virtues. Arnold explains, ‘Contemporary western propaganda sought to paint the Gothic Ricimer “as a noble Roman protector” whilst casting Anthemios “as an enraged Galatian and Greekling rather than the Roman he claimed to be.”  (153).  “Goths and Gothicness”, he continues, “represented martialism, the old Roman virtue of virtus (the very source of the term virtue), which meant “manliness” or “courage.” Virtus was an ideal that the Romans had seemingly lost, becoming overly effeminate (perhaps even overly Greek), yet which until recently had been most Roman indeed”.

This view of the “collapse” of the West as the fault  of enervated Western Romans at the hands of manly barbarians troubles me. Depictions of  the Later Empire like those found in Arnold bring to mind the image of cowed unmanly Roman aristocrats handing over their lands to “magnificently armoured barbarians” that so angers scholars like Walter Goffart. As Goffart reminds us, “The ‘fall’ of the West Roman Empire is not now (perhaps not ever) envisioned as a military defeat by brave barbarians of enervated troops that had lost the will to fight.”[i] Even in the final years of the West, Roman generals like Aetius continued to prove this dominance on the battlefield.[ii]Most scholarship on the Late Roman army agree with this assessment, contending that when properly led, the Eastern and the Western Roman armies continued to maintain a distinct advantage in direct confrontations with their foreign enemies.[iii] Certainly Italo-Romans would have remembered a good number of manly fifth-century Western Roman soldiers. So too was there an acceptance amongst many Italo-Romans of a shared Romanness between Easterners and Westerners well into the sixth century.

I would agree, however, with Arnold that the familiar trope concerning the unmanly and Greek identity of Eastern Romans is found in both Eastern and Western writers. I have written recently a long article of Procopius’ attempts to rebut this gendered propaganda by the Goths. This does not mean that it was, however, a widely held view on the part of Italo-Romans, only a view that they thought men like Ricimer and/or Theoderic might want to hear. Tropes do not always reflect reality. As Procopius’ shows us, in Wars the Italo-Romans often had mixed loyalties. So too does there appear to be a continuing divide between Goths and Italo/Romans in the generation after Theoderic. If the Goths were truly “new” Romans more juxtaposition should be seen. Arnold nowhere addresses the notion found in Wars that the Goths continued mostly to live amongst themselves in Northern Italy. Moreover, abandoning his and his peoples’ Arianism would have been an easy step in being accepted as true Romans. In the East, the generalissimo Aspar was willing to have his son convert to Orthodoxy in order to marry the Emperor Leo’s daughter in 470 to be better accepted…..so why not Theoderic? Religious conviction seems unlikely, Gothic identity and maintaining the continuing loyalty of the Gothic warriors who truly kept him in power seem the most likely reason that this step was never taken.

Despite my concerns with some of A’s more sweeping statements, his study is much more thorough and interesting for both the novice and the expert than Lafferty’s work that is based largely on a tenuous source. Indeed, despite L’s claims, whether Theoderic even composed the Edictum is not clear, or accepted by specialists who see it as a much later product. On another note, it is a bit strange given the two scholars’ familiarity and similar topic that they do not engage one another’s disparate views of Theoderic’s Italy. Perhaps their friendship played a role. Indeed, like mixing matter and anti-matter, neither work may have survived the confrontation!

So if you only have time to read one new book on Theoderic this year, make it Roman Restoration. I would, however,  keep my mentor John Moorhead’s less sensational—but in places more sound and thorough— 1992 tome on Theoderic (Theoderic in Italy)  by my side to check and compare some of the broader assertions. Heather’s chapters on Theoderic and Procopius can also provide the usually accepted alternative views to be found largely in A’s extensive footnotes. In closing, (for now!) though one need not always agree with his conclusions, A’s thorough reanalysis of evidence is thorough and engaging, and despite my reservations about the overriding thesis, this is my favourite book to come out on the period in the past few years.

Since I am in the midst of writing a detailed review of this important work, I will make one last comment. Arnold makes the wise point that our view of the period is often crafted by both ancient and modern historians who knew that Theoderic’s bold experiment had failed. As he points out both mid-sixth century historians Procopius and Jordanes offer us an Eastern viewpoint after Justinian’s reconquest had driven the Goths to near extinction. Seen from the vantage of 511 Rome, Theoderic’s regime may have offered much hope for Italo-Romans seeking to restore the Greatness and military prowess of ancient Rome.

 

[i] Goffart, Barbarian Tides, 28.

 

[ii] For the continued effectiveness of the Western army under the command of Aetius, see Hugh Elton, “Defence in fifth-century Gaul”, in Fifth-Century Gaul: A Crisis of Identity?, ed. John Drinkwater and Hugh Elton (Cambridge: University Press, 1992) 167-76.

 

[iii] Southern and Dixon, Later Roman Army, 177; see also Heather, Fall of the Roman Empire, 446, who argues that  the dual problems of the Hunnic invasions combined with political infighting in the fifth-century Western Empire led to a perfect storm of calamity, whereby “the barbarian peoples had just enough military might to carve out their enclaves.”

A Real Life Game of Thrones: the struggle between Aspar and Leo I, 457-471

 

(Missorium of Aspar, 434)

FL (avius) ARDABUR ASPAR VIR INLUSTRIS COM(es) et MAG(ister) MILITUM et CONSUL  ORDINARIUS. Aspar, bearded and wearing a tunic and a toga, holds up in his right-hand the mappa, and in his left a sceptre surmounted by two small busts of Theodosius II and Valentinian III. He is flanked by his son Ardabur standing, with the inscription ARDABUR IUNOR PRETOR. His son wears a similar outfit and, also holds a mappa raised in his left hand, whilst he salutes his father with his right hand.  Above them there are two medallions containing the busts of Aspar’s father Ardabur, consul in 427, and his relative Plintha, consul in 419.

The struggle between the Roman emperor Leo I (ruled 457-474) and his Alan mentor and senior Eastern consul Aspar has been seen rightly as a political dispute that helped to determine the long-term survival of the Eastern Roman Empire. What follows is my updated account on this struggle that culminated with the bloody assassination of Aspar and his sons by palace eunuchs in 471.

 

A Barbarian Cloaked in Roman Clothing?

Leo was born ca 401 in the Balkans. Writing in the early years of Anastasios’ reign, the Isaurian Candidus (frag. 1) maintained that he was from Dacia in Illyricum. While John Malalas (14.35) writing under Justinian stated that he was of Bessian stock (the Bessi were an independent Thracian tribe).[1] This area had long served as one of the primary recruiting grounds for the Late Roman army. [2] Indeed, the careers of men like Leo serve as an apt reminder that the army continued to offer Roman citizens from more humble backgrounds an attractive career opportunity.[3]

At the time of his ascension, Leo was serving as an undistinguished commander of the troops in Selymbria.  The Emperor Marcian had died on 27 January 457. Ten days later at the Campus Martius in Constantinople, Leo was proclaimed emperor in front of a mixed audience of senators, imperial regiments (scholai), key members of the military, and most symbolically, Anatolios, the archbishop of Constantinople. Despite the chants of the audience insisting that each faction “demanded Leo as emperor,” one suspects that most within the audience had a little knowledge about the man who was about to don the imperial diadem. When they all chanted in unison, “Leo augoustos may you always be victorious! He who has chosen you, may he guard you![4] Some within the audience might be forgiven for thinking that this protector was not the Christian saviour of the next line of the chant, but the Alan magister militumFlavius Ardabur Aspar, the man behind Leo’s unexpected crowning.[5]

 

Aspar

Marcian (probably) and Leo (definitely) had been raised by Aspar.[7] Aspar had a long if rather chequered military career spanning five decades. With his father, Ardabur (consul 427), he had served in Theodosius II’s short-lived and indecisive war (421-22) against the Persians. Having earned a reputation for martial prowess in the Persian campaign, in 424/25, the father/son duo represented two of the three commanders Theodosius II sent into Italy to overthrow the western usurper John. After the capture of his father at sea, Aspar boldly rescued his father and captured John by stealthily overwhelming the usurper and his supporters in the formerly impregnable Ravenna.[8] In, 431 Aspar teamed up with the western generalissimo Boniface in a failed attempt to expel the Vandals from North Africa.  From 431-435 he had remained in the West commanding the Eastern forces garrisoned there. This service saw Aspar named consul by the western emperor Valentinian III in 434. In 441 we find Aspar negotiating a treaty with the Huns. Aspar and his army in 443 suffered a severe defeat at the hands of Attila. Priscus tells us that by 449, Aspar’s star was on the wane. [9] Indeed, Aspar was probably one of the commanders that Priscus derided for cowardice in the face of the Hunnic threat.[10] By the time of Theodosius II death in 450 it appears that Aspar had regained the good graces of the emperor, and the sixth-century chronicler John Malalas maintained that Aspar was present when the dying emperor supposedly proclaimed that Marcian— a soldier who had served under Aspar— should be his successor.[11]

Though scholars continue to debate how important a role Aspar played in Marcian’s ascension, it seems clear that in the early years of Leo’s reign he wielded a great deal of power, and in fact may be seen as a shadow emperor. Rather than rule himself, Aspar, like his western contemporary the Goth, Ricimer, a bit like Roman Dick Cheneys, largely tried to influence events behind the scenes.[12] In establishing his role behind the scenes he was successful during the reign of Marcian, if obviously less so during Leo’s. Unfortunately for Aspar, Leo had an independent, and if contemporary sources are to be believed a violent streak.

The relationship only soured gradually. Leo took his time before he made his move to eliminate his mentor.  His creation in 460 or 461 of an elite palace guard the execubitors has been seen by most historians as one of his first steps to counterbalance Aspar’s authority.[13] This gathering of soldiers linked to him personally continued when in 464 Leo named his brother-in-law Basiliskos magister militum per Thracias. The emperor’s next moves were much more dangerous to Aspar’s interests. A whispering campaign initiated by the emperor and his inner-circle played upon the traditional Roman distrust of non-Romans in positions of authority. The next year Leo accused Aspar’s son Ardabur of giving away state secrets to the Persians and dismissed him from the command he had held since 453. We are lucky to have a source that provides some insight into the affair, and Aspar’s vulnerability. Written by an anonymous author sometime between 492 and 496, the Life of Daniel the Stylite (55)appears to provide an insider’s view on the incident. In view of its importance in shedding some light on this affair, and indeed, the rise of Zeno, and the opening salvo in the dispute between the East’s two most powerful men, it is necessary to quote it in full:

About that time a certain Zeno, an Isaurian by birth, came to the Emperor and brought with him letters written by Ardabur, who was then General of the East; in these he incited the Persians to attack the Roman State and agreed to cooperate with them. The Emperor received the man and recognizing the importance of the letters he ordered a Council to be held; when the Senate had met the Emperor produced the letters and commanded that they should be read aloud in the hearing of all the senators by Patricius, who was Master of the Offices at that time. After they had been read the Emperor said, ‘What think you?’ As they all held their peace the Emperor said to the father of Ardaburus, ‘These are fine things that your son is practising against his Emperor and the Roman State’. Aspar replied, ‘You are the master and have full authority; after hearing this letter I realize that I can no longer control my son; for I often sent to him counselling and warning him not to ruin his life; and now I see he is acting contrary to my advice. Therefore do whatsoever occurs to your piety; dismiss him from his command and order him to come here and he shall make his defence’.

The Emperor took this advice; he appointed a successor to Ardabur and dismissed him from the army; then ordered him to present himself forthwith in Byzantium. In his place he gave the girdle of office to Jordanes and sent him to the East; he also appointed Zeno, Count of the Domestics.

And the Emperor went in solemn procession and led him up to the holy man and related to him all about Ardaburs’ plot and Zeno’s loyalty; others told him, too, how Jordanes had been appointed General of the East in place of Ardabur. The holy man rejoiced about Jordanes and gave him much advice in the presence of the Emperor and of all those who were with him then he dismissed them with his blessing.

The emperor did not stop here. In 466, Leo appointed Zeno as comes domesticorum and, in that same year, the Isaurian married the emperor’s daughter Ariadne. Attila’s son, Dengizich, invaded Thrace in 467. Leo made Zeno magister militum per Thracias and sent him to thwart the incursion.[14]

The writing must have been on the wall for Aspar. Though Aspar failed in his attempt to assassinate Zeno during this campaign, the Isaurian fled to what Brian Croke describes as a semi exile for the next four years. In 468 Leo launched his massive assault ostensibly to punish the Vandal King Gaiseric for his raids on Eastern and Western Roman lands. Procopius made it clear that a glorious Roman victory was not in Aspar’s best interests. I would suggest, however, that the historian’s further suggestion that the commander of the campaign Basiliskos betrayed the Byzantine cause for a bribe from Gaiseric or as a favour to Aspar are improbable, and are probably linked to later propaganda hostile to both Aspar and the future emperor.[15]

It is interesting to note that Leo himself takes little of the blame in the accounts that survive.[16] I would suggest that this is part of the reason that fifth and sixth century emperors did not feel the need to direct campaigns in person. If the assault failed, a scapegoat could be found within the military, whilst if victory was achieved the emperor could represent himself as the face of Roman victory. Certainly the example of the Western emperor, Majorian’s (ruled 457-461) aborted attempt to launch a military expedition against the Vandals in 460, and subsequent execution in August 461 at the hands of his non-Roman advisor Ricimer, offered ample warning to Leo to proceed with caution.

Clearly despite his largely successful campaign to place blame elsewhere, the defeat for a time undermined Leo’s political momentum. Within Constantinople, as a consequence to Zeno’s exile and the disastrous defeat, Aspar appears to have regained the upper-hand or at least equilibrium. We find that he was powerful enough to have his son Patricus raised to caeser, and Aspar was likely behind the magister militum Anagast’ revolt against Leo I.[17] Yet it would be wrong to paint this conflict as one between the Roman Leo and the barbarian Aspar. After five decades as a member of the upper echelons of Roman society—and in fact the senior eastern senator—Aspar, to borrow the words of Walter Goffart, “was a courtly grand seigneur.”[18]

Without his primary protector Zeno, Leo must have feared for his life. Yet some sort of political stability appears to have returned to Constantinople by 471.[19] Certainly Leo’s eunuchs seemed to take Aspar and his sons by surprise when they assassinated them with relative ease within the imperial palace.[20] Yet Leo’s survival was a near thing. Proof of just how dangerous a situation Leo found himself in before the assassination is the fact that Zeno only found it safe to return to the capital after Aspar and his colleagues had either been killed and/or fled.

Views were mixed on the justice of this move.  Distaste for the assassination is evident in many Byzantine sources. Leo’s nickname “the butcher” was a slight used by his enemies (see e.g. the frags. of Malchus). Not everyone disagreed with the elimination of Aspar. Writing during the reign of Justinian (527-565) Malalas (cf. the similar positive view of Leo found in the history of Malalas’ contemporary, the historian Procopius) records a letter supposedly written by Leo to his western counterpart Anthemios[21] that sheds light on how latter Byzantines viewed this action. Leo explains that he had killed Aspar and his sons in order to be the one “who gives orders not takes them.”[22] He suggests that to avoid being a mere puppet, Anthemios assassinate his supreme commander the Goth Ricimer, and also that he should kill Leo’s rival (and future western emperor) the Roman noble Olybrius. Unlike, Leo, Anthemios failed to act quickly enough and Ricimer was left to his own devices, which led eventually to disaster for the Western halve of the Empire. According to this paradigm, the Western half of the Empire fell because the Western emperors failed to stand up to these barbarian strong-men, in contrast, in the East, the Roman Emperor Leo I assassinated his generalissimo Aspar and purged his Germanic supporters.[23]

Leo’s success in eliminating his puppet master Aspar has been explained by A.D. Lee this way. He suggests that Stilicho’s decision at the opening of the fifth century to name a supreme commander of the Western Roman army stood in contrast to the East where five generals served to balance each other was one important factor.  Leo’s wise manoeuvring to gain a powerful ally in the Isaurian Zeno helped to protect him in the dangerous aftermath of the assassination.[24] Valentinian III had not taken similar precautions. With no one to protect him Aetius’ supports quickly returned the favour.[25] So too had he eliminated a Roman general who had famously defeated Attila. The swift retaliation against such a murder is understandable. Leo had an easier time explaining his elimination of a man he painted as a traitorous barbarian, who had tried to betray the Romans to the Persians and the Vandals. So too could Leo emphasize Aspar’s relatively poor record as a Roman commander. Valentinian III had a much more difficult time disparaging the Roman war hero Aetius.

The fifth century period was a real life Game of Thrones. The older vision of this era as a battle between noble Romans and rogue barbarian factions has, however, largely been overturned. The recent trend is to dismiss the older idea these men were motivated by issues of ethnicity. Hugh Elton, for instance, rejects the idea of “Germanic” and Isaurian solidarity as a prime-mover of affairs during Zeno’s reign. Roman factional politics remained the prime factor in the internal struggles that troubled the twin regimes during this period. Needing to confirm themselves as “true” Romans all three men went to great lengths to establish their credential of leaders of the state and the church. This helps to explain in Wood’s mind why Leo and Zeno took steps to paint themselves as supporters of orthodoxy whilst painting their rivals as enemies of the Church.

Moreover, Leo’s attempt to paint Aspar as an unorthodox and violent “barbarian” may have been an attempt to subvert propaganda critical of his regime. Men like Leo, Aspar, Zeno, and Theoderic were not so different.[26] All had risen to prominence within the Roman military. Like his successor Zeno, as an obscure soldier from Thrace, Leo would have been seen by many within the Constanlopian elite as little better than a barbarian himself (a view of Justinian that we find in Procopius). Yet I would agree with Conor Whatley that “commanders from the Balkans serving Rome, and ultimately based in Constantinople” were considered by their contemporaries as Roman.[27]

So why did not Aspar just make himself or one of his sons emperor or indeed a barbarian rex along the lines of the Ostrogoth Theoderic?  Doug Lee (Contra Arnold, Wood) suggests, the likeliest explanation was that as an Alan and an Arian, Aspar, like Ricimer, could not rule themselves.[28] So too were links to the ruling regime important. Though it seems like Stilicho they sought to align their sons to the imperial family. Kaldellis’ idea that it took two generations into become Roman may be apt, but it does not explain why Aspar could not reign since his father was an esteemed Roman general. Moreover, I would add that they may have preferred avoiding all the other obligations that went along with the role. Certainly Constantius III, if Olympiodorus is to be believed, regretted giving up the relative freedom of his military command after he became Honorius’ partner in 421.[29]Other scholars, however, disagree with this assessment. Jonathan Arnold points out that Aspar was “Roman” enough for a diadem (there is evidence that Aspar was offered to become emperor of the Western half of the Empire)[30]; so was Areobindus; so was Tarasicodissa Zeno.[31]

Where do I stand on the issue? I largely agree with the newer scholarship that sees the turmoil that beset both halves of the Empire as largely resulting from factional rather than ethnic disputes. Yet I am more inclined to believe that men like Theoderic and Aspar may have promoted their non-Romanness, and indeed, Gothic or Alan identity.

So too does it seems strange to me that Aspar would have promoted Leo I to the purple in 457 if he was going to be seen as a barbarian. Zeno too seems to have not promoted his identity as an Isaurian who technically were considered as Romans, if by this period as tenuous and semi-barbaric (see, Lenski 2011). Modern historians seem to make more of Leo’s and Zeno’s status as supposed barbarians than even their most ardent Byzantine opponents did. The ideas that the Western senate offered to make Aspar emperor has also been disputed by some I believe rightly. Moreover, the fact that Aspar and Theoderic remained “Arians” seems important. If they wanted to be seen as Romans: Why not just convert to the “Orthodoxy” of the day? Certainly being an Orthodox Christian was becoming a marker of Romanness in this period. Though as others point out throughout Byzantine history one’s orthodoxy did not necessarily make one a Roman and/or Byzantine e.g. Serbians, Russians etcetera.

 

[1] Writing shortly after Leo’s reign, Candidus should be preferred. In fact, Malalas’ contention may represent later attempts to paint Leo as a barbarian cloaked in Roman clothing.

 

[2] Michael Whitby, “Emperors and Armies”, in Approaching Late Antiquity: The Transformation from Early to Late Empire, ed. Simon Swain and Mark Edwards (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 166. For a discussion of Balkan Military culture, see Patrick Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489-554 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 277-313.

 

[3] A. D. Lee, War in Late Antiquity, A Social History (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 82. The majority of recent scholarship on the Late Roman military has increasingly rejected the older entrenched theories surrounding the demilitarization of the Roman upper-classes and the increased barbarization of the Roman armies of the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries.

 

[4] Following the complete depiction of Leo’s ceremony found in Constantine Porphyrogennetos, Book of Ceremonies, trans. Ann Moffatt and Maxeme Tall (Canberra: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 2012), 410-416.

 

[5] Marcian’s son-in-law the future western emperor Anthemios (ruled 467-472) was probably the expected successor. The Alans were steppe nomads of Iranian decent. By the fifth century many groups had absorbed Gothic cultural ideals.

 

 

 

 

[7]For Aspar’s essential role in Marcian’s ascension, I side with arguments made by Burgess (“Marcian”): though see the different views found in Chew and Walter Beers (“Faction Politics and the Transfer of Power at the Accession of Marcian”) that suggest that the empress Pulcheria was the key player. These arguments fail to convince; Burgess argues persuasively that Pulcheria’s key role in Marcian’s appointment was an invention of later Monophysite writers seeking to undermine Chalcedon.   For Aspar’s part in Leo’s rise, see Priscus frag.19 (Blockley). For the limitations of Imperial women’s power to influence political events, see now McEvoy, Child Emperor, 236.

 

[8] Socrates, HE 7.23; Olympiodorus, frag. 43. The ecclesiastical historian Socrates naturally focused on the miraculous aspect of Ravenna’s capture, whilst the secular minded Olympiodorus explained that the prisoner Ardabur had undermined John’s position within the city before Aspar arrived with his cavalry.

 

[9] Priscus, frag. 14.85-90.

 

[10] Priscus, frag. 9.3. Priscus most likely composed his history during the second reign of Zeno (Treadgold, Byzantine Historians, 100).

 

[11] John Malalas, Chronicle 14.27. Cf. Chronican Paschale, S.A. 450. We should, however, discount Malalas’ contention that Theodosius had named Marcian as his successor at this time.

 

[12]For a full account of Aspar’s career, see – Profile of Aspar in the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire.

 

[13] Treadgold, 157. Treadgold’s further contention that these 300 palace guards were predominantly made up of Isaurians has been recently questioned by Croke (“Isaurians”).

[14] For my interpretation of events I follow here: Brian Croke, The Date of the ‘Anastasian Long Wall’ in Thrace” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 20 (1982): 59-78.

 

[15] Procopius, Wars 3.6.1-2,5-25. Modern historians (e.g. Penny MacGeorge, Late Roman Warlords, 58) doubt the bribe account, placing blame for the defeat on Basiliskos’ bad generalship.

 

[16]Leo must have instigated a propaganda campaign to keep himself from blame straight away…e.g. painting Aspar as afraid of the Vandals…whilst promoting his own “fearlessness”. The old topoi of blaming a barbarian like Aspar for betraying the Empire to a fellow barbarian had a long tradition in Roman literature. Perhaps blaming Basiliskos’ treachery in accepting a bribe from the Vandals comes later, since it is strange that after such treason he could still become emperor. In the fifth and sixth-century sources, Roman failure in the battle is not blamed on the army as a whole. In the mind of contemporary Byzantine sources, the fleet’s defeat was to be attributed to the “betrayal” by a few individuals at the top.  We see in many of the accounts the subsequent growth of “true” Roman heroes in the face of defeat (note the different heroes found in the accounts of Marcellinus, Malalas, and Procopius).

 

[17] Priscus frag. 56.

 

[18] Walter Goffart, Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Late Roman Empire (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 276. N. 43.

 

[19] Most historians (e.g. Heather, Restoration, 22), including Croke, have believed that Leo at this time was protected by bands of loyal Isaurians.

[20] John Malalas 14.40.

 

[21]A former magister utiusqe militae, consul, and patrician under Marcian, Anthemios had been hand-picked by Leo as his western counterpart. As we can see from the passage above, the easterner Anthemios had landed in a difficult situation. As one recent scholar has shown, ‘Contemporary western propaganda sought to paint the Gothic Ricimer “as a noble Roman protector” whilst casting Anthemios “as an enraged Galatian and Greekling rather than the Roman he claimed to be.” (Arnold, 153).

 

[22] Wood (Multiple Voices) sees this passage as an instance of Malalas being ironic, maintaining that the chronicler sought to present Leo as a barbarian along the lines of Ricimer. I doubt that the rather clumsy historian Malalas was capable of such subtlety.

 

[23] This view for the fall of the west and the survival of the east found in writers like Procopius is still followed by more traditional scholars: e.g., (Treadgold, 1997, 149-155); (Heather, 2013).

 

[24]A.D. Lee, From Rome to Byzantium, ad 363 to 565: The Transformation of the Ancient Roman World (Edinburg: Edinburg University Press, 2013), 98-101.

 

[25] Priscus, frag 30.

 

[26] For Zeno being far more of a barbarian than Aspar, see Goffart, Tides, 38.

 

[27] Conor Whately, “Militarization, or the Rise of a Distinct Military Culture? The East Roman Elite in the 6^th Century AD”, in: Stephen O’Brien and Daniel Boatright, eds. Warfare and Society in the Ancient Mediterranean: Papers arising from a colloquium held at the University of Liverpool, 13^th June 2008. (Oxford, 2013), 49-57.

[28] Doug Lee, “Theodosius and his Generals,” in Theodosius II: Rethinking the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity, ed. Christopher Kelly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 108.

 

[29] Olympiodorus, frag. 33.

 

[30] The story may be anachronistic since it dates from 501, recording a synod between the Gothic rex Theoderic and a group of Western bishops. Supporters of it validity have argued that Aspar was offered the throne either in 450 or 457 they have also debated whether it was an offer to rule in the East or the West.

 

[31] Arnold, pers. comment. Heather (Restoration, 21-22) rejects the notion that Aspar could have been emperor.

 

Bessas and other sixth-century Byzantine commanders not named Belisarius or Narses

 

The military campaigns of the sixth-century Byzantine Emperor Justinian are remembered largely for the deeds of his generals Belisarius and Narses. This focus is to be expected since most military historians rank these two commanders high in the annals of generalship. Yet as one recent scholar (Parnell, Justinian’s generals) has pointed out, Procopius tells us about 48 other Eastern Roman generals. These commanders have attracted far-less notice. Recently, however, the career of the Goth Bessas has received some needed attention. This focus has less to do with the deeds of this rather mediocre commander than the fact that we have some pretty good sources on his career. So too has Bessas somewhat blurred ethnic identity played a part in this interest (e.g. Amory, People and Identity). My colleague Conor Whately recently gave a paper on Bessas at the Oxford conference on Procopius that he has kindly allowed me to see as it progresses. It compares P’s views on Bessas with that of Belisarius. Parnell’s article mentioned above adapted from his PHD dissertation seeks to uncover a less literary individual, which I would suggest is quite difficult, given that our main source has crafted a largely didactic tale that sometimes stretched the truth when it suited his purposes. I touched on Procopius’ presentation of Bessas in my MA thesis Between Two Worlds, but time and space constraints made it necessary to leave him out of my Procopius article that is currently being edited for publication. Conor, points out , in his article that Bessas seems to represent another of Procopius’ inversions found (e.g wise restrained barbarian kings, manly women and eunuchs) throughout Gothic Wars, a “rash” Roman general, (though  I would point out Bessas was seen by P as a Goth so this inversion may not be apt.)

 

What I hope to do soon is go back and have a complete look at Procopius’ and Agathias’ discussion of Bessas and a few other lesser known commanders. I will not bore anyone here with the drafts, but will post when something more substantial has been created.

 

By the way anyone interested in pursuing or needing a PhD topic a dissertation on Byzantine generals besides Belisarius and Narses found in Procopius, and/or Agathias would be a good one!

 

 

And last, here is my short blurb about Bessas from my MA thesis:

In the account, Procopius contrasted the noble actions of a priest with the cowardly conduct of the Eastern Roman generals. He vilified the Byzantine commanders for their avarice and refusal to relieve the city’s suffering. He indicated that while the populace of Rome was reduced to “monstrous foods unknown to the natural desires of man,” the Byzantine commander Bessas capitalized on the populace’s misery by selling bushels of grain from his personal horde at exorbitant prices.23 In contrast, he provided a description of what he considered the proper Christian response to such a calamity:

At Rome likewise, as it labored under the siege of Totila, all the necessities of life had already failed. Now there was a certain man among the priests of Rome, Pelagius by name, holding the office of deacon; he had passed a considerable time in Byzantium and had there become especially intimate with the Emperor Justinian, and it so happened that he had a short time previously arrived at Rome possessed of a great fortune. And during this siege he had bestowed a great part of his fortune upon those destitute of the necessities of life.24

 

With this act of philanthropy, Pelagius (consecrated Pope Pelagius I in 556 CE) gained the Roman civilians’ respect. Therefore, when they needed someone to intervene on their behalf with Totila, they chose Pelagius, and not one of the Byzantine generals. The Ostrogothic leader greeted the deacon’s embassy with civility, yet he insisted that he would grant no mercy either to the Sicilians or to the “slaves” who had escaped from his army to join the Byzantine forces. Instead of acquiescing to the formidable general’s power and menace, Pelagius stood his ground and challenged Totila by claiming that he and his men would have preferred “to have been treated with contempt and still have accomplished some of the objects for which they came, than, after hearing more courteous words to return disappointed.” The deacon finished by warning Totila that he would refer his “mission to God, who is accustomed to send retribution upon those who scorn the prayers of suppliants.”25 Procopius implied that it was Pelagius’ Christian duty to protect all men, regardless of their social status or nationality.

Pelagius’ principled behavior may be compared with Bessas’ selfish actions when the Ostrogoths finally stormed Rome. The Byzantine general took flight along with his army, forcing the remnants of the population to seek refuge in the city’s churches. Once again, Pelagius shielded the Roman citizens from Totila’s fury:

Totila for his part went to the church of the Apostle Peter to pray, but the Goths began to slay those who fell in their way. And in this manner there perished among the soldiers twenty-six, and among the people sixty. And when Totila had come to the sanctuary, Pelagius came before him carrying the Christian scriptures in his hand, and, making supplication in every manner possible, said “Spare thy own O Master.” And Totila, mocking him with a haughty indifference, said; “Now at last Pelagius, you have come to make yourself a suppliant before me.” “Yes” replied Pelagius, “at a time when God has made me your slave. Nay, spare your slaves, O Master, from now on.” And Totila received this supplication with favor and forbade the Goths thereafter to kill any Romans at all.26

 

This quotation illustrates how influential Christian notions of bravery had become by the sixth century CE. Procopius characterized this incident as a duel between two very different warriors. Pelagius fought as a “Christian soldier,” in a non-violent yet effective manner. The priest bowed down to Totila’s physical superiority but continued to fight as a Christian warrior, not with a sword or spear, but with humility and concern for others. As a good Christian, Totila conquered his need for revenge and, recognizing the deacon’s authority, submitted to him. Once more, Christianity’s subtle force had overcome a barbarian’s propensity for violence (βιαστής).

 

23 Procopius, Wars 7.17.9-10.

24 Procopius, Wars 7.16.4-6.

 

25 Procopius, Wars 7.16.4-20.

 

26 Procopius, Wars 7.20.23-5.

Two King of Kings? Procopius’ Presentation of Justinian and Kosrow I

With Putin reasserting his power in Ukraine, I thought it would be a good time to talk about another powerful ruler who sought to restore a faded Empire, 

 

The importance of strong leadership represents a central theme in all of the sixth-century Byzantine intellectual Procopius’ works.  According to Procopius, great men made history, and a leader’s heroic or shameful conduct often determined the prosperity or poverty of the Eastern Roman Empire. This paper investigates Procopius’ description of two of the most influential men of his era: the Persian emperor Kosrow I, and the Byzantine emperor Justinian. It proposes that Procopius tended to present the two emperors as mirror images of each other. Indeed, particularly in the Secret History, the historian’s characterisation of Justinian sought to paint him as an eastern despot rather than a Roman emperor. In doing so, the historian cleverly subverted contemporary imperial propaganda that promoted the emperor as a king of kings.[1] Moreover, the essay will suggest that despite Procopius’ attempt in the Wars to create heroic secular men to compete with the ancient models found in Homer, his sixth-century Christian notions of valor created visions of ideal and non-ideal leaders that differed somewhat from those found typically in the classical literary tradition. It has been adapted from my 2003 Master’s thesis Between Two Worlds: Men’s Heroic Conduct in the Writings of Procopius.

Two Eyes of the World

Justinian held the most important and powerful position in the Eastern Roman Empire. Nevertheless, the Byzantine leader was not the only potent emperor of his era. In the sixth century CE, the Byzantine Empire faced a formidable challenge from the Persian Empire. As Procopius portrayed it, the Persian war was not only a struggle for supremacy between two powerful Empires, but also a personal contest between two emperors, Justinian and Kosrow.

Kosrow provided Procopius with an ideal villain with which to describe all the dangers of letting a “depraved” man run an Empire. Ironically, like many scoundrels, Kosrow is one of the most intriguing men in Procopius’ work. And despite Procopius’ attempts to make Belisarius seem heroic during the Persian wars, frequently, as Averil Cameron suggests, “it is Kosrow who steals the thunder.”[2] While Kosrow serves primarily as a foil to Justinian in Wars, Procopius’ negative description of the Persian leader closely resembles his account in the Secret History. of Justinian’s depravity. These parallel accounts might be taken to suggest that Procopius simplified history and failed to understand both emperors’ political motives and mindset. To the contrary, it reveals that, for Procopius, what made a “just or an “unjust” emperor was based on a universal code of morality.[3]

According to Procopius, Justinian and Kosrow shared several traits that made them despots. Each leader loved innovation and disregarded the traditions of the Empire he ruled. Early in his reign, Kosrow’s hunger for power and his determination to introduce administrative reforms alarmed the Persian aristocracy: 

Kosrow, the son of Cabades, was a man of an unruly turn of mind and strangely fond of innovations. For this reason he himself was always full of excitement and alarms, and he was an unfailing cause of similar feelings in all others. All, therefore, who were men of action among the Persians, in vexation at his administration, were proposing to establish over themselves another king from the house of Cabades.[4]

 

Procopius remained vague about the details of Kosrow’s “innovations.” This absence suggests either that he did not know the particulars of these changes or that he merely created the notion of Kosrow as a revolutionary as a means to compare him with his true target: Justinian. Proof of the latter theory may be seen in the similarity between this narrative and Procopius’ description of the Nika revolt.[5] The resemblance between the two accounts is striking. In each case, the aristocracy’s unease with the reforms and the megalomania of the emperor led to an attempted overthrow. Ultimately, both insurrections failed. As a consequence of their victories, the vengeful emperors lashed out against the nobles and consolidated their power. With the upper classes in both Empires humbled, Justinian and Kosrow remained unchallenged for many years. Procopius lamented that this omnipotence, in due course, brought disaster to both Empires.

The adoration of power and money served as another appalling trait common to Kosrow and Justinian. Procopius emphasized that Kosrow’s invasion of the Eastern Provinces was motivated largely by avarice and jealousy. Vexed at the Byzantines’ success in North Africa, Kosrow demanded his share of the spoils. When Justinian refused, Kosrow accused the emperor of breaking the treaty between the two powers, and he invaded the Eastern Provinces, where he proceeded to sack cities in order to extort money from the Byzantine populace.[6] Although Procopius condemned Kosrow for looting the Eastern Provinces, at least the Persian emperor had attacked a foreign enemy. In contrast, Justinian’s exploitation of the Byzantine population was a far more vile crime. The historian lamented:

Now it was laid down by ancient law that whenever a senator of any of the cities departed this life without male issue, one quarter of his estate should be given to the local Senate, while the next of kin of the deceased enjoyed all the remainder. Here too the Emperor showed his own character in its true colors. He happened to have recently published a law which reversed everything. From then on, whenever a senator died leaving no male issue, the next of kin were to share the quarter of the estate while all the rest went to the treasury and to the account of the local Senate. And yet never before in the history of mankind had Treasury or Emperor been permitted to share the property of a senator.[7]

 

Roman culture had a long tradition of seeing rapacity as a flaw in men and leaders. Christian writers and thinkers had developed this theme. Indeed, in many Christian histories from Late Antiquity, a king’s or emperor’s desire for material goods served as the root cause for a subsequent “evil reign.”[8]

So too did Procopius expect ideal military leaders to grant unarmed civilians mercy. Unlike Justinian, Kosrow personally led the Persian army into battle.[9] Despite Procopius’ admiration for leaders who willingly faced the dangers and challenges of battle, he condemned Kosrow for his “vicious” military campaign in the Eastern Provinces:

He saw, while the city was being captured, a comely woman and one not of lowly station being dragged by her left hand with great violence by one of the barbarians; and the child, which she had only lately weaned, she was unwilling to let go, but was dragging it with her other hand, fallen, as it was, to the ground since it was not able to keep pace with that violent running. And they say that he uttered a pretended groan . . . though he knew well that he himself was most responsible for everything.[10]

 

Although as emperor Justinian never led his armies into battle, Procopius still blamed him for what he considered the dire consequences of his military campaigns.[11] The historian suggested that, like Kosrow, the Byzantine emperor had also launched his reconquest in order to plunder “other people’s property.” Procopius maintained that Justinian had “insisted on making himself master of Libya and Italy for the sole purpose of destroying their inhabitants along with those already subject to him.”[12]

For Procopius, a weakness of spirit was often matched by an infirmity of the body. And he described both emperors as sickly men. Kosrow’s frail nature forced him to surround himself with physicians.[13] Similarly, Justinian nearly succumbed to the plague; only divine intervention saved him. Procopius hinted that the plague served as God’s warning that he was dissatisfied with the Eastern Romans and their Emperor. He also suggested that, like all men, the emperor was mortal, and that his temporary power paled in comparisons to God’s eternal authority.[14]

Procopius argued that while Kosrow established his superiority by leading his armies on campaigns, Justinian maintained his dominance by remaining in the capital and manipulating things behind the scenes. Justinian ruled as a secular and a religious leader. In both realms, however, Justinian faced challenges to his ascendancy. The emperor took several steps to deal with these threats and guarantee that he remained the “preeminent man” in the Byzantine Empire. While the early Byzantine successes in the North African and Italian campaigns enhanced Justinian’s vision of a “new” Roman Empire, they also created rivals draped in martial manliness who could potentially serve as competitors to the emperor. From the era of the Roman Republic, a triumphant general’s popularity amongst his soldiers and the populace presented the greatest threat to the authority of the Roman government.

The fifth and early sixth centuries had seen Roman and non-Roman soldiers playing increasingly important roles in both making and unmaking Roman emperors. Generals like Aetius and Ricimer in the West and Aspar in the East were arguably the most powerful and influential politicians in the fifth century. All of these men hailed from the military aristocracy, and they often used their power and influence to control the reigning emperors, who were often little better than puppets. Indeed, many fifth-century emperors had begun their careers as relatively obscure soldiers in the armies of these generalissimos.[15]  

It should not surprise us then that the non-campaigning Justinian thought he was vulnerable to usurpation. Procopius certainly showed his readers that Justinian felt threatened by Belisarius’ military victories and his subsequent fame. His fears were not completely unjustified. After Belisarius’ defeat of Vittigis, the Gothic nobility had offered, “to declare Belisarius Emperor of the West.”[16] This threat to Justinian’s authority must have made him very suspicious of Belisarius’ motives. Even before this proposal occurred, Justinian had taken steps to check Belisarius’ growing influence. Following the Eastern Romans’ relatively easy victory over the Vandals, Belisarius had returned to Constantinople basking in glory. Rumors, though, had already reached the emperor that Belisarius sought “to set up a kingdom himself.”[17] Justinian handled the situation carefully. He realized that he had to reward his victorious general, but he also recognized the need to preserve his own prestige. In an effort to suggest the former glory of the Roman Empire, Justinian allowed Belisarius a “triumph.”

While Belisarius’ celebration evoked memories of former processions, officially it only served to commemorate Belisarius’ inauguration as a consul. (During the era of the Republic two men had held this office similar to that of a Prime Minister; by the sixth century, though still prestigious, the position had become symbolic and was abolished by Justinian in 541.)[18] Like every Roman emperor since Augustus, however, Justinian made sure that the triumph was granted in his own name. Justinian emphasized that Belisarius had achieved his victory through his, and therefore God’s good graces. Justinian allowed Belisarius to march the defeated Vandals and their magnificent treasures through the streets of Constantinople. However, fully aware of the importance of visual symbolism, the emperor set himself upon his throne high above everyone else. When Belisarius came before Justinian, the general fell prone to the ground to pay the emperor homage.[19]

 

Justinian also took steps to make himself the face of Roman victory. Contemporary literature and iconography lauded “the image of a victor emperor.[20] Besides, Procopius several other Byzantine authors composed works dedicated to promoting the emperor’s military campaigns.[21] Justinian also created public monuments like the one above to commemorate “his” military victories (importantly the statue faced East at the Byzantines most formidable enemy, the Persians). In Buildings, Procopius described a magnificent mosaic in Constantinople depicting the Empire’s victories over the Vandals and North Africa and in Italy against the Goths. The emperor and the empress Theodora represented the center-point of this visual expression of “Roman “military hegemony.

While Justinian largely succeeded in overcoming his rivals in the secular world, he had a more difficult time asserting his ascendancy in the religious domain.[22] This was particularly true in the Empire’s provincial cities, where bishops had accumulated ever increasing authority and prestige. Part of the bishops’ increased authority came through their roles as the providers of charity for the poor within the Empire. In Late Antiquity it became the duty of all Christian men to provide both financial and moral support to the poor.[23] The Christian notion of charity differed from classical forms of social welfare in that it obligated members of the clergy and aristocratic Christians to provide assistance to all people in need. In contrast, the classical form of charity had involved political relationships and to borrow the words of J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz “its recipients were . . . as a whole voters, clients and other individuals who could be expected to do a favor in return.”[24]

Procopius indicated that imperial charity was the mark of a great emperor. Following other Christian emperors, Justinian felt compelled to support charitable institutions throughout the Empire. While Procopius frequently condemned the emperor for frittering away the Empire’s treasury, he praised him for the building of philanthropic institutions.[25] Procopius considered Christian charity as one of the Byzantine emperor’s most important duties. When the bubonic plague devastated the Empire in 542 CE, Procopius showed how Justinian played a leading role in easing the Byzantine citizens’ suffering:

It fell to the lot of the emperor, as was natural, to make provision for the trouble. He therefore detailed soldiers from the palace and distributed money, commanding Theodorus to take charge of this work. . . . Theodorus, by giving out the emperor’s money and by making expenditures from his own purse, kept burying the bodies, which were not cared for.[26]

 

Justinian felt compelled to protect the poor. By providing this service he competed with the Christian hierarchy who had gained increasing power through their role of providing the poor with financial and social assistance.

 Justinian took great pains, as well, to stress his special role as an intermediary between his people and God. In Buildings, Procopius revealed how past Roman emperors had emphasized their special relationship with the Christian Church: “the Emperor Constantius had built this church in honor of the Apostles and in their name, decreeing that tombs for himself and for all future Emperors should be placed there.” Procopius made it clear that this relationship was more than just a symbolic one:

When the Emperor Justinian was rebuilding this shrine, the workman dug up the whole soil so that nothing unseemly should be left there; and they saw three wooden coffins lying there neglected, which revealed by inscriptions upon them that they contained the bodies of the Apostles Andrew, Luke, and Timothy.[27]

 

Because the emperors and the Apostles had a special relationship, it was natural that they would be buried in the same ground.  Constructing religious shrines served as a means for an emperor to accentuate his special relationship with the spiritual realm. Procopius emphasized that Justinian gave thanks to the Apostles by continuing his church building with an increased passion. Dedicating churches throughout the Empire and the newly conquered territories also served a political purpose. It not only cemented the emperor’s religious role in the minds of the Byzantine populace, but also helped established Justinian’s preeminence for his new subjects as well.

Procopius blamed many of Justinian’s faults, as was the case with Belisarius, on his marriage to an immoral woman. Instead of portraying Justinian as an “evil genius,” Procopius maintained that the emperor was a simple man: “with no more sense than a donkey, ready to follow anyone who pulls his reins.” According to Procopius, Justinian married Theodora because he was overcome by “an overwhelming passion for her”.  Procopius used the union as an example to show how far Justinian had strayed from “Roman” traditions. Even Justinian’s aunt, the empress Euphemia, whom Procopius perceived as “completely without culture,” and “of barbarian origin,” refused to accept the marriage while she lived.[28] For Procopius, the fact that a “non-Roman” would have more respect for Roman traditions than its emperor showed just how far Justinian’s lust for Theodora had kept him from looking out for the needs of the Empire.

Procopius indicated that powerful couples could be a force for good or evil in the world. Procopius’ fear of Theodora’s influence suggests that women could play powerful roles in sixth-century Byzantium. Nevertheless, in his invective against the imperial couple, Procopius also concluded that the most powerful players in the Byzantine Empire dwelled in the spiritual realm. While Procopius described both Justinian’s and Theodora’s flawed natures as resulting from their sordid characters and humble backgrounds, he had a difficult time attributing all of their “evil triumphs” to their own actions. Procopius indicated that there had to be some higher power guiding the emperor and the empress. For a Christian like Procopius, it was logical to assume that if a just emperor relied on God’s and the saints’ supernatural assistance to promote his reign, then an unjust emperor must have another mystical form of support: demons. Procopius stressed that those who thought that Justinian and Theodora had succeeded in bringing ruin to the Eastern Roman Empire by chance were mistaken, for “it was not by human but by some very different power that they wrought so much havoc.” For in fact, “a pair of blood-thirsty demons” had possessed Justinian and Theodora. This assessment made perfect theological sense to Procopius, suggesting the extent of his Christian belief. A mere mortal man and woman could never have stood up to God or the Apostles; therefore, for Procopius, the only logical explanation for their success was that the two had become “man-demons” [ἀνθρωποδαίμονες] who had thwarted God and led the Eastern Roman Empire and the “whole world” to ruin.[29]

Further evidence of Procopius’ Christian beliefs and the powerful influence of women over powerful men may be found in his description of Kosrow’s marriage to a Christian woman, Euphemia. Procopius indicated that the Persian emperor felt both intrigued and repelled by Christianity. Procopius argued that Kosrow had captured Edessa in order to refute the Christians’ claims that city could not be taken because it had divine protection. Despite Kosrow’s belief in the superiority of Zoroastrianism over Christianity, Procopius revealed that the Persian emperor’s fondness for his Christian wife played a role in his displaying restraint and “kindness to the inhabitants of Sura.”[30] Although political necessity forced Procopius to portray Kosrow as a typical villain, Procopius hints that the power of Christianity could influence even the most powerful and corrupt men.

Procopius’ description of admirable and villainous leaders presents a complex amalgamation of Christian and classical ideals. Procopius presented Justinian and Kosrow as two mighty yet defective leaders. Each was convinced of his own omnipotence and natural right to dominate others. Procopius maintained, however, that despite both emperors’ seeming supremacy, when compared to the power and magnificence of God, their authority was fairly limited. Their power was temporary, while God’s authority was eternal.

 

 

Illustrations

1. Presbytery mosaic of the emperor Justinian I, church of San Vitale, Ravenna Italy.

2. Kosrow I seated on his throne, Ctesiphon, Iraq.

 

---

[1] For this propaganda during Justinian’s reign, see Matthew Canepa, The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual Between Rome and Sasanian Iran (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 134.

 

[2] Averil Cameron, Procopius and the Sixth Century (London: Routledge, 1985), 163.

 

[3] For an in-depth discussion of some of these parallels see now Anthony Kaldellis, Procopius of Caesarea: Tyranny, History and Philosophy at the End of Antiquity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), esp. 119-142.

[4] Procopius, Wars 1.23.1-3.

 

[5] Procopius, Wars 1.24.1.

 

[6] Procopius, Wars 2.8.1.

 

[7] Procopius, Secret History 29.25

 

[8] E.g. Martin Heinzelmann, Gregory of Tours: History and Society in the Sixth Century, trans. Christopher Carroll (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2000), 156.

 

[9] Like earlier Roman emperors, the success of the Sassanid dynasty depended upon the ability of the king to lead his armies to victory. Zeev Rubin, “The Sassanid Monarchy,” in The Cambridge Ancient History Volume 14 Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors A. D. 425-600, ed. Averil Cameron, Bryan Ward-Perkins, and Michael Whitby (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 659-60.

 

[10] Procopius, Wars 2.9.9-11.

 

[11] Justinian, however, began his career as a solider. He served as an elite member of the palace guards (kandidatoi) during the reign of the Emperor Anastasios I (ruled 491-518), and in 520, during the reign of his uncle Justin I (ruled 517-527), was named commander of the imperial troops in Constantinople (magister militum praesentalis).

 

[12] Procopius, Secret History 6.16.

 

[13] Procopius, Wars 8.10.11-3.

 

[14] J.A.S. Evans, The Empress Theodora: Partner of Justinian (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002), 60. 

[15] Brian Croke“Dynasty and Ethnicity in the Reign of Leo I and the Eclipse of Aspar, “Chirion 36 (2005): 147-203. Justinian’s predecessors Marcian (ruled 450-457), Leo I (ruled 457-474,) Zeno (ruled 474-5, 476-91), Basiliscus (ruled 475/6), Justin I all began their careers as humble soldiers (the exception, Anastasius ruled 491-518, served as a palace official before surprisingly being named emperor).

 

[16] Procopius, Wars 6.30.24-7.

 

[17] Procopius, Wars 4.8.6.

 

[18]Procopius, Secret History, 170, n. 1.

 

 

[19] Procopius, Wars 4.8.2-10.

 

[20] McCormick, Eternal Victory, 67.

 

[21] Whately, “Militarization”, 51.

[22] Most seriously, the on-going divide between supporters of the council of Chalcedon, like the emperor, and those who opposed it, like the empress Theodora, created religious division where the emperor sought unity.

 

[23] For these developments, see now Peter Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012).

 

[24] J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz: Barbarians and Bishops: Army, Church and State in the Age of Arcadius and Chrysostom. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 187-9.

 

[25] Cameron, Procopius, 127.

 

[26] Procopius, Wars 2.23.6-10.

 

[27] Procopius, Buildings 1.4.20-2.

 

 

[28] Procopius, Secret History  9.28-9.

[29] Procopius, Secret History 12.14.

 

[30] Procopius, Wars 2.12.6-26.