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.

Lingering Martial Romanitas in Byzantium

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Howdy, readers! Easter break provides the rare opportunity to make a post. I have a ton of projects that I am simultaneously working on at the moment. I have just finished a clearance review of a book and an article. Both are very good, which makes the task more pleasing. I have article coming out in the next AABS publication that is very hard work because it needs a substantial rewrite, since much of what I wrote originally on Narses has already been published. This turned out to be a good thing since a refocus on other eunuch-commanders such as Solomon and Eleutherios has made for a much more interesting and innovative piece. I may offer some bits here. What follows is very much a draft from the conclusion from my forthcoming book…so enjoy and make comments and criticisms if you like.

LINGERING MANLY ROMANITAS IN BYZANTIUM

Why did you assume you were addressing an assembly of women, insulting our nature as well as our race? With words you misrepresent deeds, bringing shame on the council. Did you not realize that you were pouring forth disgraceful words in the presence of men [ἀρρένων]? Or do you not see an assembly of Roman people, proud of their zeal, vigorous in arms, knowledgeable in their experience of danger and Providence for future advantage?

Theophylact Simocatta, History 2.14.3 (trans. Whitby).

The excerpt above comes from what would prove to be the last Greek history composed in the grand classical style for more than three centuries.[1] The Egyptian Theophylact published his work in the euphoric period surrounding the soldier-emperor Heraclius’ emphatic victory over the Persians in 628—a brief interlude of triumphant calm before the sudden emergence of the Arab threat in the 630s that saw the near snuffing out of the Byzantine Empire.[2] The sudden disappearance after 640 of many genres of secular literature and inscriptions, as well as the Muslims’ emergence as a new religious and political rival in this period,[3] demarcate the dawning of a new age.[4] I have chosen the era of Theophylact’s history to conclude this investigation for these reasons, as well as the obvious martial aspect and gendered implications of the passage. The set-speech from which this quotation is drawn certainly touches on two of this book’s primary themes: the primacy of military matters and the manliness of war. In the anecdote, which describes the Roman response to an Avar invasion of Thrace in 587, the historian constructed a debate between two Roman soldiers, one a tribune, and the other a grizzled veteran. The deliberation provides the reader with both the standard commentary on the fine lines between courage and rashness and the familiar linking of traditional martial virtues to masculinity. The tribune suggested that it was best to avoid a direct confrontation with the Avars, whilst the veteran advocated a more aggressive approach. The older soldier appeared to win the debate with his refrain that Rome’s rise to world dominance had been due to its men’s embrace of the rigours and courageous virtues of the soldier’s life.[5] His assertion from the rhetorical opening of the speech that bold action on the battlefield helped to prove that Roman soldiers’ souls were ‘masculine’ [ἄρρενας] like their bodies serves as an important final reminder for my readers of how conceptualizations of the Roman soldier’s life remained linked intimately to masculine ideology.[6] According to Theophylact, ‘courage’ in battle represented a sure sign of ‘manliness’, whereas ‘cowardice’ in the face of conflict indicated that one had fallen into the realm of ‘effeminacy’.[7]

We have seen such motifs before. Indeed, the emotive rhetoric associating traditional Roman codes of masculinity with idealised visions of the soldier’s life is so common in the ancient Roman and the early Byzantine sources that the modern reader is tempted to skip over such bombastic speeches to get to the ‘relevant’ parts. Ancient and modern scholars have quite rightly criticised Theophylact for his heavy reliance on ‘extravagant metaphors, sententious artistry, and ornate rhetoric’.[8] Yet, as I have argued throughout this study, an exploration of these standard themes helps one to understand these early Byzantine texts and the society that produced them. Although such anecdote’s heavy reliance on standard rhetoric and stock heroes and villains may tell one very little about the combatants’ ‘real’ personalities, or the actual debates among the Roman soldiers before battle, they provide important insights into wider societal attitudes towards gender and masculinity. The episode above, for instance, relied on the traditional appeal of the manly Roman soldier and the conventional disdain for the cowardly and effeminate man.

Martial virtues and images of the soldier’s life continued to represent an essential aspect of masculinity and Romanitas in the early Byzantine period. This is not to say that the masculinity of soldiers represented the only type of heroic manliness in this period. As was discussed in chapters 4 and 5, alternative pathways to achieving ‘true’ manliness had long been a feature of masculine ideology in the Late Roman and the early Byzantine period. Extreme ascetics, courageous martyrs, fearless philosophers, and powerful political and Church leaders were all, at times, compared favourably to military men. Moreover, Christian historiographical concepts like providence and miracles played a role in the classicising histories of Procopius, Menander, and Theophylact.[9]

Traditional hegemonic masculinity secured in acts of masculine bravery in warfare, however, proved resilient in the early Byzantine period. Certainly, one need not serve in the military to perceive the soldier’s life as an exemplar of the manly life. Civilian elites admired the manliness of war and the masculine deeds of the Empire’s soldiers. As Theophylact had 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.[10]

Scholars have long recognised how Heraclius’ wars against the Persians and Muslims neatly synthesised traditional secular and religious rhetoric.[11] This pairing is understandable since the martial and devout Heraclius was a by-product of a Byzantine world that inextricably interwove the political with the spiritual. Faced with a fight for its very survival, Heraclius’ Byzantium naturally ramped up the bombast. As Walter Kaegi suggests, Heraclius ‘was emphasizing participation and even deaths in this war as a means to heaven’. Nonetheless, we would be wise to heed Kaegi’s further warning, that Heraclius military campaigns were ‘no simple religious crusades’. They were ‘multidimensional’ conflicts ‘of which religious zeal was only one aspect’.[12] Of course, as we have observed in the previous chapters, these important developments of the seventh century had firm roots in earlier times. Unquestionably, however, the deft intermingling of spiritual and secular codes of warfare and masculinity had evolved somewhat over the years. The fifth-century Theodosian emperors lack of military experience and prowess had little place in a world where the Empire’s very survival was on the line. As we mentioned in Chapter 2, in 611 Heraclius had broken with precedent by leading the Roman army into battle against the Persians. The emperor probably had taken this step out of necessity since the Persian forces at this time were marauding freely within large swathes of Byzantine territory. In this highly charged climate, Heraclius’ propaganda naturally fell back on Old Testament and classical examples of warrior-leaders protected by God, manfully defending their religion and their lands.

The set of nine seventh-century silver plates known as the David plates (e.g., plate 15: ‘fight between David and Goliath’), which illustrate various Old Testament scenes from King David’s life, offer us visual evidence of elements of this propaganda. Modern research suggests that the scenes depicted on the plates intentionally provide direct analogies with events from Heraclius’ Persian war. Ruth Leader, for example, posits that the use of ‘imperial costumes and settings’ represent the designer’s attempts to invoke ‘a visual analogy between the kingdom of Israel and the Roman Empire’.[13] Such iconography echoed similar motifs found in Heraclian literature. As Mary Whitby explains, contemporary writers like George of Pisidia took a keen interest in depicting Heraclius as a military leader who, through a combination of God’s guidance and his own courage, wisdom, clemency, and mildness achieves ‘not only personal, but also cosmic salvation’.[14] This model of strong spiritual convictions and traditional active militaristic leadership would continue to play an essential role in imperial self-definition throughout the Byzantine period. Indeed, the majority of Byzantine emperors who followed Heraclius served as actual rather than symbolic warriors; 2/3 of these emperors had ‘led troops before or after their accession’.[15]

With East Rome in crisis, Byzantium’s enemies also wielded gendered religious rhetoric to endorse their own rights to dominion. The seventh-century Armenian historian, Sebeos has a Muslim commander accepting the surrender of parts of the Eastern Roman Empire scoff at the protective power of Christ and the cross. Recording what seems to be a genuine ultimatum from the caliph,[16] the historian wrote:

If you wish, he said, to preserve your life in safety, abandon that vain cult which you learned from childhood. Deny that Jesus and turn to the great God whom I worship the God of our father Abraham. Dismiss from your presence the multitude of your troops to their respective lands. And I shall make you a great prince in your region and send prefects. I shall make an inventory of the treasures and order them to be divided into four parts: three for me and one for you. I shall provide you with as many soldiers as you wish, and take tribute from you as much as you are able to give. But if you do not, that Jesus whom you call Christ, since he was unable to save himself from the Jews, how can he save you?[17]

The tactic used by the Muslim commander above, of criticizing the unmanliness of Christ’s crucifixion should cause little surprise, since, as Colleen Conway states, ‘it was Jesus’ death that most called his masculine honor into question’. In fact, despite multifaceted attempts by the New Testament to portray Christ’s crucifixion as a manly act similar to examples in the Greco-Roman noble death traditions, many Christian Romans appeared reluctant to embrace these more pacifist strains of Christ’s masculinity.[18]

This sentiment helps to explain why in the first thousand years of the Church’s history the figure of the dead Christ was almost never shown. Christian tradition seemed reluctant to portray Christ as a suffering man, preferring to emphasize his divine power (e.g. plate 8).[19] As Felicity J. Harley-McGowan explains, there was ‘A fundamental hesitancy on the part of Christians to approach this particular narrative, but also an inherent lack of creativity in formulating iconography for the representation of critical episodes from that narrative, such as the Crucifixion or the Resurrection’.[20] This hesitancy was not limited to visual iconography. One finds early Byzantine writers like Eusebius largely ignoring details of the crucifixion, concentrating instead on His rebirth, and focusing on the ‘treachery’ committed by the Jews in Christ’s condemnation.[21] The same is largely true as well for the fourth and fifth century Church Fathers from both halves of the Roman Empire.[22]

We see in his history, however, Sebeos subtly addressing the Muslim commander’s denigration of Christ’s feebleness. Likely writing between 656-661, a period when internal divide within the Muslim world stalled its expansion, Sebeos went on to relate the Byzantines’ ‘glorious’ victory over an Arab naval attack on Constantinople in 654— a victory that the historian attributed to God and the ‘pious prayers’ of the Emperor Constans II (ruled 641-668). We know of course, that this respite was only temporary, and that Byzantium survived by the thinnest of margins.

Historians have long admired the Byzantines for their resilience in the face of near extinction at the hands of a seemingly relentless Muslim foe. These perilous circumstances have tended to shape opinions of the age as one of doom and gloom. James Howard-Johnston echoes the voice of modern consensus when he insists that a long series of military defeats at the hands of the Muslim armies had convinced many Byzantines that the hand of God was against them:

Each successive defeat likewise impressed on Christians the plain truth that the Muslims were indeed agents of the Lord and that the End of Time was approaching. No wonder then that the morale of an army might suddenly plummet or that a whole province might submit once there was no prospect of help from field forces. There was also no point in continuing resistance from the cities, doomed as it was to failure and likely cost their ruling elites all their suburban villas, gardens, and orchards.[23]

There is definitely some truth in this view. Nonetheless, we should not place all of the ebbs and flows of Byzantine fortunes at the feet of eschatological and apocalyptic Christian belief. If apocalyptic paralysis represents the primary factor behind the Muslim’s triumphs and the Byzantines’ failures in the second half of the seventh century, it does little to explain Byzantine resilience in the same period and at the siege of Constantinople in 717-718. Surely if the majority of the Byzantines believed whole heartedly that the long-line of Arab victories and territorial conquests served as a ‘true’ sign that God had turned against them, Constantinople’s citizens and its armies would have bowed down to the inevitable. On the contrary, they innovated, resisted and survived.

As is well known, the seventh-century Byzantines’ ability to adopt political reforms and adapt ‘new’ military technologies helped them to survive the initial shock of the rapid Muslim advance. The use of the incendiary compound we call ‘Greek-fire’ represented a crucial factor in the Byzantine’s capacity to resist the Muslim naval attacks on Constantinople.[24] So too did the resettlement of Slavs during Constans II’s reign into areas of Anatolia depopulated by the Arab invasions play a part in Byzantium’s defense. Furthermore, Constan’s refinement of the basic elements of what would become by the eighth and the ninth centuries the themata (a division of Roman territory into separate military provinces, whereby a general [stratēgos] held civilian and military power) assisted in ensuring the East Romans’ long-term survival.[25] Such practical tactical and organisational innovations demonstrate that political and military leaders did not place Byzantium’s survival purely in the hands of God, but continued to seek practical solutions to the military dilemmas they faced.

A lingering sense of manly martial Romanitas offers a further explanation of Byzantine endurance in the face of extinction. As we have seen, Romans—Christian and pagan—had a long record of overcoming foreign foes in similarly dire situations. One cannot help but to suspect that a combination of a continued belief in the resilience of Roman military virtues and the practical need to survive, represent the primary factors behind Byzantium’s continued resistance and century-long battle back to relevance.

Manly Romanitas, then, helped to hold Byzantine society together.[26] Certainly one finds evidence of the power of cultural memory in later Byzantine historians. Anguishing over his contemporaries’ failure to live up to the martial masculine prowess and ideals of his Republican Roman forbearers, the eleventh-century Byzantine aristocrat and historian Michael Attaleiates encapsulates the appeal of a continuing belief in the vital connection between martial virtues, manly Romanitas, and the prosperity of the Roman State that we have explored throughout this monograph. When explaining the reasons behind his Roman forbearer’s greatness, he opined:

For the noble Romans of that time did not strive for money and the acquisition of wealth but simply for renown, the demonstration of their manliness, and their country’s safety and splendour.[27]

The sentiments expressed above, reveal the extent that a later Byzantine like Michael could identify with his non-Christian Roman past. Michael sees himself as one of the ‘modern Romans’ [Τοῖς δὲ νῦν Ῥωμαίοις] admiring the manly martial virtues of his pagan ‘Roman ancestors’ [οἱ πάλαι Ῥωμαῖοι].[28] A mutual admiration of the manly values found in the soldier’s life united these ancient and modern Romans. His Republican forebears may not have shared all of Michael’s Christian values, but they both embraced the manly and martial virtues that represented a fundamental facet of their shared Romanitas. An ability to tap into this Roman cultural memory represents a key factor in Byzantium’s longevity. In this process, the State was not essential. Indeed, the social bonds among aristocrats were particularly important during periods when the State’s authority waned. In these times of crisis, the ruling elites could become the voice of the social order. By conjuring a view of aristocratic power and Roman identity that stretched back to the Roman Republic, Michael thus vividly roused his fellow members of the social hierarchy. This helps us to understand why a societal value like manly martial Romanitas remained largely impervious to the tides of political and communal change.[29]

Therefore, I suspect that for many Byzantines, defeat at the hands of their enemies did little to shake the entrenched notion that ‘Roman’ greatness had been earned by the manly blood of its soldiers. The battlefield continued to provide one of the easiest places for men in Byzantine civilisation to prove not only their courage, but also to express their enduring manly Romanitas.

[1] For some possible reasons for this decline in almost all genres of Greek secular literature, see Whitby ‘Greek Historical Writing’, pp. 66-74, Treadgold, Byzantine Historians, pp. 348-9, 393-9, Croke, ‘Historiographical Audience’, pp. 34-5. On the disappearance of stone inscriptions, see M. Whittow, ‘Early Medieval Byzantium and the End of the Ancient World’, Journal of Agrarian Change 9.1 (2009), pp. 134-53.

[2] Theophylact’s career and the date of composition and publication of his history are discussed in M. Whitby, The Emperor Maurice and his Historian: Theophylact Simocatta on Persian and Balkan Warfare (Oxford, 1998), pp. 39-45.

[3] For the seventh-century conquests of Byzantine territory as primarily a Muslim, not an Arab phenomenon, see J. Howard-Johnston, Witness to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century (Oxford, 2010), p. 527. On the idea that Islam’s formation and subsequent ‘militant ideology’ represented a ‘late antique’ phenomenon, see R. Hoyland, ‘Early Islam as a Late Antique Religion’, in The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity, ed S. F. Johnson (Oxford, 2007), pp. 1053-77.

[4] On the transformative nature of this age for Byzantium, see J. F. Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Century (Cambridge, 1997).

[5] Theophylact, History 2.14.6, ed C. de Boor and re-ed P. Wirth. (Stuttgart, 1972); trans. M. and M. Whitby (Oxford, 1986).

[6] Theophylact, History 2.14.1: ‘Men of Rome, unless you would belie the name by your actions; men, that is if your souls [ψυχάς] are masculine [ἄρρενας] like your body. Even though the tribune is expert at high-flown talk and at confusing the issue, nevertheless deeds are more vigorous than words and do not tolerate empty sounds’. I have changed the translator Whitby’s ‘hearts’ for ψυχάς to ‘souls’.

[7]Theophylact, History 3.13.4: ‘Comrades-you are my comrades both in toils and tumults because of the war-the engagement is established as a test of virtue [ἀρετῆς] and vice [κακίας], and is the arbiter of souls: for this day will either convict us of effeminate [θηλυπρεπὲς] cowardice [δειλίας], or with garlands and glorious triumphs will proclaim our manly [ἀρρενωπὸν] bravery [εὐτολμίας]’. I have changed the translator Whitby’s ‘courage’ for ἀρετῆς to ‘virtue’ and ‘cowardice’ for κακίας to ‘vice’.

[8] Whitby, introduction to Theophylact, History, p. 28. For a later Byzantine view, see Photius, Bibliotheca cod. 65.

[9] For this role in Theophylact and his sixth-century predecessor, Menander, see Whitby, ‘Greek Historical Writing’, p. 44

[10] Theophylact, History 5.4.8-9.

[11] On the increasing focus in Heraclian propaganda in the Persian war based on religious themes, see S. Alexander, ‘Heraclius, Byzantine Imperial Ideology, and the David Plates’, Speculum 52 (1977), pp. 217-37, M. Whitby, ‘Defender of the Cross: George of Pisidia on the Emperor Heraclius and his Deputies’, in The Propaganda of Power: The Role of the Panegyric in Late Antiquity, ed Mary Whitby (Leiden, 1998), esp. pp. 247-65, Y. Stoyanov, Defenders and Enemies of the True Cross, The Sasanian Conquest of Jerusalem in 614 and Byzantine Ideology of Anti-Persian Warfare (Vienna, 2011). For Byzantine attitudes towards ‘crusade’ and ‘holy war’, see J. Koder and I. Stouraitis, eds Byzantine War Ideology Between Roman Imperial Concept and Christian Religion (Budapest, 2012).

[12] Kaegi, Heraclius, p.126. Cf. Dennis, ‘Holy War’, pp 31-9.

[13] R. Leader, ‘The David Plates Revisited: Transforming the Secular in Byzantium’, The Art Bulletin 82. 3 (2000), pp. 413-14.

[14] Whitby, ‘Defender of the Cross’, p. 263.

[15] Treadgold, Byzantium and Its Army, pp. 1, 214.

[16] Howard-Johnston, Witness to a World Crisis, p. 91.

[17] Sebeos, The Armenian History of Sebeos 50 (170), trans. R. W. Thomson, TTH 31 (Liverpool, 1999).

[18] Conway, Behold the Man, p.177.

[19] The literature on the transformation from ‘triumphant’ to ‘suffering’ Christ in both literary and visual forms has attracted much interest, see e.g., C. Morris, the Discovery of the Individual (New York, 1972), C. Chazelle, The Crucified God in the Carolingian Era (Cambridge, 2001), R. Viladesau, The Beauty of the Cross: The Passion of Christ in Theology and the Arts from the Catacombs to the Eve of the Renaissance (Oxford, 2006). Boin (Coming Out Christian, pp. 50-53), considers some of the reasons behind early Roman-Christians’ reluctance to embrace images of the ‘crucified’ Christ.

[20]F. J. Harley-McGowan, ‘The Narration of Christ’s Passion in early Christian Art’, in AABS 16 (Melbourne, 2006), p. 223.

[21] Eusebius, HE 1.2.

[22] See, e.g. A. Bain, Four Interpretations of Biblical Crucifixion Narratives in the Latin West, c. 350-430. (PhD thesis, Queensland University, 2007).

[23] Howard-Johnston, Witness to a World Crisis, p. 473. Cf. F. M. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam (Cambridge MA, 2010), pp. 14-17, G. J. Reinink, ‘Pseudo-Methodius: A Concept of History in Response to the Rise of Islam’, in The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East, ed A. Cameron and L. Conrad (Princeton, 1992), pp. 149–87.

[24]On the current debates surrounding the development and effectiveness of this weapon, see J. Haldon, ‘“Greek fire” Revisited: Recent and Current Research’, in Byzantine Style, Religion and Civilization: In Honour of Sir Steven Runciman, ed E. Jeffreys (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 290–325.

[25] The literature on the origins and extent of the implementation of the thematic administration in the seventh century is vast. For good introductions, see R. J. Lilie, ‘Die zweihundertjährige Reform: zu den Anfängen der Themenorganisation im 7. Und 8. Jahrhundert’, BS 45 (1984), pp. 27-39, 190-201, J. F. Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Century (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 208-53.

[26] C. Leyser (‘Introduction: Making Medieval Societies’, in Making Early Medieval Societies: Conflict and Belonging in the Latin West, 300-1200 [Cambridge, 2016], pp.1-15) discusses the ways such shared convictions hold societies together during periods of political rupture.

[27] Michael Attaleiates, History 27.11, Greek text according to the edition of E. Tsolakis, Michaelis Attaliatae Historia [CFHB 50], (Athens 2011), pp. 169-170. Cf. Miguel Ataliates: Historia, ed I. Perez Martin, (Madrid 2002); trans. according to A. Kaldellis and D. Krallis, The History, DOML (Cambridge MA, 2012) : Οὐ γὰρ πρὸς ἀργύριον καὶ πλούτου ἐπίκτησιν οἱ εὐγενέστατοι Ῥωμαῖοι τὸ κατ᾽ ἐκεῖνο καιροῦ ἠγωνίζοντο, ἀλλὰ δι᾽ εὔκλειαν μόνην καὶ ἀνδρίας ἐπίδειξιν καὶ τῆς ἰδίας πατρίδος σωτηρίαν τε καὶ λαμπρότητα.

[28] For this theme in Michael’s history, see A. Kaldellis, ‘A Byzantine Argument for the Equivalence of All Religions: Michael Attaleiates on Ancient and Modern Romans’, International Journal of the Classical Tradition 14. 1/2 (2007), pp. 1-22, L. Neville, Heroes and Romans in Twelfth-Century Byzantium (Cambridge 2012).

[29] For this communal stability in societies beset by political turmoil and fragmentation, see Leyser, ‘Making Early Medieval Societies’, p. 5.

Finding Mr or Mrs Right: Marriage Alliances in the Age of Theodora

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Sorry once again for my neglect of the blog. I do have an excuse; I just wrote a book on Procopius for Amsterdam University Press, which was published on June first and I have been editing a massive volume for Routledge, which will come out next year. With that said, before the whole Covid thing hit, I spent last November in Venice and London giving some papers, the second of which I gave at the University of London for a history seminar series I post here for the blog; it is also available as a video on the ICS website. I am currently reworking it for a book chapter, but enjoy:

I must open by thanking Kate and Richard for inviting me to speak here tonight; it is a great honour. Having spent the past two weeks away from the fires devastating my adopted homeland of Australia, however, has magnified some larger issues, in terms of our planet’s climate change crisis—I left the frying pan to enter the fire.

Slide 2

Recent events have reminded me that none of us are immune to the consequences of ignoring a rapidly heating planet. In September, parts of the rain forest near my home Gold Coast caught fire for the first time in living memory, destroying my family’s favourite vacation spot.

Slide 3

Then last week I was on hand for the near record Aqua Alta in Venice. Though it might sound cliché, we must all be a powerful voice for change or we risk much that is precious to us. So hopefully tonight’s talk will do something to offset the negative carbon impact I have made on the planet by flying all the way from Australia.

With that said, I am excited to be here. I would not have missed the opportunity to meet Kate, in person, since her work has long inspired me. I first read her masterful Virgin & the Bride for a graduate seminar taught by my mentor Mathew Kuefler, now—I hope Kate doesn’t mind me saying— nearly two decades ago. Among the many stimulating ideas I absorbed from both Kate’s book and another assigned for the seminar, Caroline Walker Bynum’s Holy Feast & Holy Fast, was the important notion that choosing a life of virginity and not getting married might have been an empowering choice for medieval women.

Today’s paper on marital alliances amongst elites in Theodora’s Constantinople is a topic that has fascinated me for some time. I touched on this subject in my first book the Soldier’s life, which primarily looked at men’s masculinity, but also examined ancient women from the upper-crust and the agency they did or did not have in their oft-times politically motivated marriages. For instance, when reading Sidonius’ vivid description from 467 of the ruckus celebrations he witnessed in Rome surrounding the wedding of the Western emperor Anthemius’ daughter Alysha and the much older non-Roman generalissimo Ricimer, I pondered just what she was thinking on the night, and moreover what happened to her when the relationship between the two former generals broke down.[i] So too did the example of the fifth-century Byzantine empress Ariadne, in 491, actively choosing the relatively obscure Anastasius as her second husband and new imperial partner, make me appreciate broader shifts concerning marital practices and the increasingly active role aristocratic women were playing in imperial politics and the influence they could wield when determining their marital futures. Yet, I also came to appreciate that we should not always depict women as a homogenous group, since women from the political and ruling elite and “women from the less privileged classes inhabited far different worlds. Moreover, since we often rely on written sources with an agenda for our views, what we think we know about these individuals might differ greatly from the ‘true’ reality. Frequently in our ancient sources, portraits of individuals function to serve the writers’ authorial purpose, but then are disposed of just as quickly once they have performed this literary duty. This can lead to an inchoate picture of even the most famous ancient men and women. The gaps in our knowledge are sometimes astonishing. As we will see, we know that the empress Theodora had a daughter from a previous relationship, but we never even learn her name. Imagine not knowing the name of one of Michelle Obama’s daughters. This talk therefore represents some of my thoughts on these complex topics and I hope they will lead to a further discussion afterwards concerning what they might tell us about Procopius’ authorial purpose and the complex web of marriage alliances that helped to shape the world of Theodora.

Slide 4

I begin with a wedding. Sometime in 528, Constantinople’s’ elite gathered in the palace of Antiochus near the hippodrome for the marriage of a powerful general and a former actress.[ii] The palace, which survives partially as ruins today, had been constructed by the fifth century emperor Theodosius II’s powerful court-eunuch Antiochus. It would have made a magnificent sight for such a ceremony between a couple of humble origins that now found themselves thrust into the upper echelons of Byzantine high society. The bride, Komito, was the elder sister of the new empress Theodora who had come to the throne the previous year, the groom, was a rising general in Justinian’s revitalised army, and likely Goth, Sittas.

Slide 5

Of course, high Constantinopolitan society had witnessed a similar wedding just a few years earlier— the famous union between Justinian and Theodora, which had only been possible because in the early 520s, Justin I had repealed Augustan legislation that had forbidden actresses and senators from marrying.[iii] As Cooper has suggested, Theodora’s and Justinian’s union may help us appreciate broader societal shifts surrounding marriage practices. Incremental shifts which accelerated in the fifth and sixth centuries and leading to a number of male Byzantine elites marrying down the social ladder in order to avoid the difficulties presented when joining an ‘equally matched kin group’.[iv]

Though our sources are silent, Theodora probably played a key role in arranging the marriage between her sister and the rising general. It was only one of many unions where Theodora linked either her family members or those close to the imperial couple to powerful elites within the military or the older noble households.

Our sources are also silent about what those from Constantinople’s more established families thought of these particular newlyweds. Unquestionably, Theodora’s Constantinople was a place where— to borrow Procopius’ words— those from ‘the common herd [ἀγελαῖος]’ could quickly rise.[v] From the fifth century, non-Romans serving within the military, such as the Alan-Goth, Ardaburii acquired the wealth, land, and titles, which had allowed them to be absorbed quickly into Constantinopole’s ruling elite.[vi] Cooper describes the situation well: ‘Across the empire, the emergence of the super-rich made for jostling between “old” and “new” money, “new” money—at least those who were playing the new game—had the advantage’.[vii] Yet this social mobility does not mean that the rapid rise of such individuals elicited no response. To the contrary, we find writers like Procopius playing upon the more established elites’ angst regarding individuals like Theodora and Justinian’s rapid ascendance. The social elites from the older nobility, who represented a prime audience for the Wars and the Secret History —were it to have come available, would have understood only too well the dishonour of being passed over for titles and positions by men like the Gothic general Sittas and having to accept as an equal a woman like the former actress Komito, whom they likely considered to be their social inferior.

Be that as it may, reflecting the increased militerization of the age, military men like Sittas could be found throughout the upper stratum of Byzantine society.[viii]

(slide 6)

Justinian like many of the new ruling elite hailed from a military family. Not less than seven of Justinian’s relatives served as generals during and after his rule.[ix] His was just one of many such families, with a long tradition of military service. Even the offspring of murdered and discredited generals like the Alan Aspar killed on the orders of the emperor Leo I, in 472, and the Goth Vitalian, murdered at Justinian’s behest in 520, continued to prosper in a world that did not seem to hold a grudge for long. As we will see, these men and their sons represented a prime group of individuals that other elites could link their sons and daughters through marriage alliances.

We know quite a bit about the groom Sittas who plays an important role in many of our surviving sources. Sittas enters the historical record when we hear of him serving alongside Belisarius as a bodyguard of Justinian, then magister militum per Orientem. Sixth-century Byzantium was a place with plenty of opportunity for those from the hinterland to earn a living as a hired sword. The emperor Justin and his adopted nephew, and rechristened, Justinian, had arrived at separate times from the prefecture of Illyricum to the capital seeking work as hired swords and had risen to serve within in the elite palace guards. Justinian served as an elite member of the forty-man candidati under the emperor Anastasius,[x] while Justin was the first know comes excubitorum, which would become a pipeline for future Byzantine emperors, such as Tiberius II.

We should not see Justinian’s role in the candidati as a purely ceremonial position, these bodyguards served as an emperor’s last line of defense, and thus were chosen for their physical qualities and military prowess.[xi]

Some modern historians underplay Justinian’s rather long military career. As Brian Croke has suggested, it is likely that Justinian had participated in Anastasius’s military campaigns in the East, and that it was the military reputation that he had earned during this time, which had led to his selection within the elite candidati. Some have even suggested that it was while campaigning in the East that Justinian had first met Theodora.[xii]

Whatever the truth of these matters, throughout his long reign, Justinian managed to maintain a good relationship with the most important segments of the army, remarkable considering the strain he frequently placed these units under.[xiii] Justinian’s time in the palace guards appears to have helped him to understand both the rivalries within these elite units and the dangers they could present to an emperor who lost his hold over them.

Therefore, it comes as little surprise that Justinian granted his trusted bodyguards like Sittas and Belisarius prime commands and sought to bind them closer to him through marriage. Though Sittas is not well known today, at the time of his wedding, he was just as an important general as Belisarius. In 527, Justinian appointed Sittas and Belisarius as co-commanders of an invasion of Persarmenia. It was at this time that Sittas would have likely met Procopius, who had been appointed personal advisor [σύμβουλος] to Belisarius in that same year.

In 528, Sittas was appointed in the new office of magister militum per Armenium. Following the defeat of Belisarius in the Battle of Callinicum (19 April 531), Sittas replaced him in the leadership of the forces in the east. Sittas received the honorific title of patrician in 535 and was named honorary consul in 536. In 538, Sittas was sent to Armenia to put down a local revolt against heavy taxation, where he was subsequently killed by a Pers-Armenian, Artabanes then fighting for the Persians— a man we will hear much more about a bit latter.[xiv]

Slide 7

As is the case with most ancient woman, we know much less about Komito. Komito, as we can see from the quotation above, as the elder sister of Theodora had earned Procopius’ scorn in Secret History.[xv] However, she is not mentioned anywhere else in his writings, which given the story to come I find strange.

Indeed, it is what Procopius does not tell us about Sittas and Komito that first spurred my interest when I realised that it is only by reading Malalas that we learn of the marriage between Komito and Sittas. Procopius, who heaps praise upon Sittas in the Wars, and was surely acquainted with the general, for whatever reason never mentions the marriage. We might linger a second to ponder why this might be and stash these ideas away for our subsequent discussion.

(slide 8)

The union would prove important to Justinian’s succession in 565. Most modern scholars believe that Sittas and Komito were the parents of the future empress Sophie, born around 530 who would go on to become one of the most powerful of Byzantine empresses.[xvi]

Some might argue, of course, that Procopius, who, in all likelihood, had died long before Justinian, could not have known the regal destiny of Sittas’s and Komito’s daughter and therefore did not feel it necessary to include her in the Wars, since women, even powerful one’s were peripheral to his main topic of men and battle. Yet, as we will discuss further below, the centrality of Sittas to key events in the Wars, would have provided Procopius with an ideal opportunity to discuss the general’s links to the imperial family. This is yet another reminder about how deep our gaps of knowledge can be about even such basic facts, and the danger of relying upon Procopius for our vision of individuals and events. As recent scholarship on key individuals from the Wars like Amalasuntha, Theodora, and Totila has shown, Procopius often offers an illusion of more knowledge about individuals or events than we really have—especially if we rely upon the problematic Secret History for our “truths”.

Another key point that I would stress, is that what Procopius leaves out is just as important to appreciate as that which he includes. So too does context and sequence matter, especially since Book 8 of the Wars was composed in the aftermath of a dramatic turnaround in the East Roman’s military fortunes in the two years after the first 7 books of the Wars were published in 551 and the Secret History was abandoned in the summer of 550. This means that his depictions of individuals like the Gothic King Totila found in Book 7 and book 8 should not be conflated. They must be interpreted in light of the different circumstances surrounding their composition. In Book 7, Procopius needed to explain why Totila and the Goths had been able to recover from there defeats in the 530s and take the fight to the East Romans in the 540s. When it was published, Totila had taken back much of Italy from the East Romans and at the very least was in a position to dictate terms to Justinian. Therefore, that Procopius in Book 7 creates a vision of a morally corrupt Roman High command being beaten both by fortune and a Gothic general who displayed many of the masculine traits of an idealised Roman general found in the ancient literature. By the time Book 8 was published in 554, Totila was dead and the East Romans on the brink of total victory. This turnaround needed to be explained by Procopius. In Book 8, Totila thus becomes much more of a typical barbarian leader displaying military qualities, but succumbing to aspects of his unstable barbarian side and, like his Goths, ultimately succumbing to the supremacy of Roman arms.

This vital need to appreciate the gestation of Procopius’ writing and unlock the larger context and arrangement is particularly important for our purposes tonight, since the examples of the marital alliances that we discuss below were being composed during the nadir of Byzantine fortunes around 550.

Unquestionably, by the mid-540s, Justinian’s reconquest was in trouble. Gone were the heady days of 534 and 540, when Belisarius, had hauled the Vandal and Gothic kings back to Constantinople in chains.[xvii] Justinian’s attempts to recover the lost territories of the Western Empire had instead devolved into a quagmire of seemingly endless military operations on multiple fronts. Procopius, offers both in his Wars, and infamous Secret History, dramatic accounts of the desperate military situation in Italy in the late 540s. These parallels are not accidental, since both accounts were likely being written around the same time. The first seven books of the Wars— which are arranged by theatre of war rather than chronologically— and as we noted above, were published no later than 551, while it seems probable that, that the hastily composed Secret History, had been abandoned by Procopius sometime in the summer of 550, never to be published in the author’s lifetime or integrated into the Wars, as some believe to have been Procopius’ original intent—had Justinian predeceased him or been overthrown.

One must keep this gloomy context constantly in mind when reading both the Secret History and the close of Book 7 of the Wars, where Procopius claims that Belisarius had become so desperate for funding and reinforcements, that in 548 he had sent his wife Antonina back to Constantinople to ask her old friend Theodora for funds and troops.[xviii] Here Procopius hints that Antonina had been tasked with this mission, because Belisarius could not trust fellow members of the East Roman high command. In fact, in an earlier section of the book, Procopius described how a similar mission in 545 led by the young general John, had come to naught, because rather than raising money, John had instead busied himself in Constantinople with arranging to marry the daughter of Justinian’s powerful cousin, Germanus. Yet, Antonina had also failed in her mission; the meeting between Antonina and Theodora never happened. In June of 548, the empress had died of cancer, sometime before Antonina arrived. Faced with a deteriorating situation in Italy and with another Persian invasion looming, Justinian then recalled Belisarius back to Constantinople. It is against this backdrop that Procopius transitions back in time to relate the circumstances surrounding a bungled plot to assassinate Justinian in early 549.

The Secret History also reports Antonina’s failed mission and the humiliation of Belisarius’ recall from Italy.[xix]As it commonly does, the Secret History, provides some further scandalous details missing from the more sober Wars; in this instance, it offers another motive for Antonina’s departure from Italy.[xx]

Twisting temporal reality to his literary advantage, Procopius relates that before her death, Theodora had sought to betroth her grandson Anastasius, the son of her unnamed daughter, to Belisarius and Antonina’s only daughter, Joannina—the sole heir to their vast fortune. Outwardly, the fact that Theodora sought to link her grandson to a couple Belisarius and Antonina, with whom she had a strong and important bond makes sense. As we have discussed, the imperial family had a long track record of making just such arrangements with those close to them. Yet, as Procopius explains, Antonina and Belisarius both opposed the marriage. According to Procopius, Theodora had not waited for their approval. Capitalizing upon the fact that Belisarius and Antonina were stuck in Italy, some months earlier, Theodora had coaxed Anastasius to seduce Joannina, the historian indeed claims that Anastasius had forced himself upon the young woman, thus making a marriage necessary. When Theodora died, however, Antonina supposedly had separated the newlyweds, which according to Procopius, elicited a negative response from Constantinople’s upper-crust, since the couple had fallen in love, and if her husband abandoned her now, she would be considered as tarnished goods by other prospective suitors.

Unfortunately, we learn nothing further from Procopius nor other surviving sources about the matter, though most modern historian speculates, that eventually Antonina and Belisarius had accepted the marriage.[xxi]

If we accept the basic truths of Procopius’ account, we might ask why both Belisarius and Antonina were so opposed to the marriage.? As Alan Cameron argued some years ago, Antonina and Belisarius’ hesitance to bind themselves further to the imperial family likely did not derive, as Procopius claimed, from a fear that Theodora and Justinian had an eye on their fortune, but more likely stemmed from issues of status. It is indeed probable that Theodora’s daughter was not Justinian’s progeny, and importantly never adopted by Justinian, and thus illegitimate. As Cameron concluded: “Antonina naturally wanted a real aristocrat or a real prince for a son-in-law.’ [xxii]

Procopius, at the close of Book 7 of Wars, traces the origins of the plot to assassinate Justinian to another thwarted marriage, in this instance, a proposed union between Praejecta, the daughter of Justinian’s sister (Vigilanta) and the up-and-coming Pers-Armenian general Artabanes, who last we saw was busy killing Komito’s husband Sittas. In this instance, Theodora, steps in to thwart the union.[xxiii]

Procopius here wields gendered and sexual language that echoes the vocabulary found in the Secret History. According to Procopius, Artabanes’ determination to marry Praejecta stemmed from a combination of political ambition and an ‘immoderate desire’ (ἐξαισία τις ἐπιθυμία) for Justinian’s niece.[xxiv] That Procopius expected his audience to appreciate the negative connotations of Artabanes’ desire, is supported by an example from Secret History (9.30) where Procopius draws on a similar theme when describing Justinian’s ‘overpowering love (ἔρωτα ἐξαίσιον)’ for Theodora. In contrast to Artabanes’ overzealous passions, in Procopius’ telling Praejecta pursues the marriage for more practical and certainly more rational reasons. She did not love Artabanes, but ‘acknowledged a heavy debt of gratitude to him’, for protecting her from the rebel Gontharis, who had slain her former husband the general Areobindus. Following older Roman marital practices, which saw Roman noble woman as spoils to be fought over in disputes between military elites (Roman and non-Roman), Praejecta is more than willing to marry a man—Artabanes— whom she may have admired, but did not love.[xxv]

Praejecta’s modesty may be contrasted with Procopius’ vision of Antonina’s and Theodora’s immodesty in the Secret History.[xxvi] In comparison to ideal Roman women like Praejecta, who were demur, loyal, pious, merciful, and chaste, Theodora and Antonina were, in Procopius’ view, immoral prostitutes eager to take on unnatural masculine roles.[xxvii] As Peter Brown once noted, by describing Antonina and Theodora in this manner, Procopius sought to undermine these social climbers’ claims to be virtuous and noble Roman women. In sharp contrast, by publicly submitting to Artabanes’ masculine authority and accepting her role in public as a reward in a contest of war, Praejecta, conversely, displayed the characteristics of the idealised Byzantine woman.[xxviii]

As I see it, this depiction offers Procopius’ contemporary audience a way to ponder the nature of Artabanes. Displaying subtle differences between current and late antique gender values, Procopius’ portrait of a love struck Artabanes was not meant to be flattering, as it might be by present standards. As is well known, Greek and Roman writers used a lack of sexual self-control to discredit their opponents. Classical Roman ideals of masculinity dictated that the effeminate was one who gave into carnal desire.[xxix] In a culture that saw unbridled lust as an unmanly emotion, Artabanes here acted more like a woman than a man. Yet most modern scholars believe that Procopius’ sympathies lay with Artabanes.[xxx]

As with many of his character portraits, to see the representation of Artabanes in the Wars in terms of like or dislike, however, is to simplify Procopius’ nuanced portrait of Artabanes, and hence underestimate the heavy literary role he plays in Procopius’ story.

Despite his character flaws, Artabanes reaped the rewards for his ‘loyalty’ to the emperor. Justinian named him as Areobindus’ replacement as magister militum per Africam. His rapid ascendency from rebel to commander in North Africa, however, did not satisfy Artabanes. Believing that a marriage to Praejecta would bring him closer to the throne, Artabanes, to borrow Procopius’ words, ‘continued to invent various false pretexts to induce the emperor to summon him to Constantinople so that the wedding could proceed’.[xxxi] These are not the actions of a conventional hero. Rather than portray Artabanes as a classic villain, however, Procopius explained that Artabanes meteoric rise from rebel to mighty general played a role in his improper conduct, declaring:

For when men lay hold upon prosperity unexpectedly, their minds remain unstable, but in their hopes, they ever keep going forward, until they are deprived even of the good luck that had been undeservedly theirs.[xxxii]

Procopius then declares that while Artabanes’ ‘great deeds’ had played a role in his rise, so had ‘good fortune’.[xxxiii] I would suggest that by highlighting innate character flaws and accentuating the role of chance in his rise, Procopius prepares the reader for Artabanes’ eventual disgrace.

Fortune, for the time being, however, continued to shine upon Artabanes. In a sign of how readily East Romans assimilated those from the fringes and outside of the Empire—especially warriors—Procopius relates Artabanes’ hero’s welcome upon his arrival to the capital.[xxxiv] Outwardly, at least, Artabanes displayed many of the qualities of ‘true’ masculine virtue. The populace respected Artabanes as a tried and loyal warrior; a man of few words, he was tall, handsome, and a fine fighter— the epitome of the manly warrior in sixth-century Byzantium.[xxxv] Importantly for the Wars’status-obsessed Byzantine readership, the general’s deeds in North Africa and loyalty to the emperor had seen Artabanes ascending even further up the ladder of imperially sponsored offices. He was even granted the now honorary title of consul.[xxxvi]Artabanes was truly a man on the rise; who better to marry Justinian’s niece?[xxxvii]

Add side note on Belisarius

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The prospective marriage made sense for both sides. The emperor was surely aware of the importance of thwarting further uprisings amongst the Armenians, which had left Justinian’s Eastern borders vulnerable to Persian attacks throughout the previous two decades; the binding of his family to a powerful Armenian warlord would have strengthened Justinian’s alliance with Artabanes and his cadre of tough fighters. It would have instantly elevated Artabanes to a higher social and cultural level matched by no other Roman general—including Belisarius. Artabanes’ marriage to the blue-blooded Praejecta would have made their offspring contenders for the purple, particularly since Justinian stubbornly refused to name an heir— a reluctance that would continue right up until his death in 565.[xxxviii] Of course we find proof of the validity of Artabanes’ dreams in the like parentage of the Empress Sophia (ca. 530-c. 601),

Theodora Steps In

However, as occurs often in the Wars, when something was too good to be true, it usually was.[xxxix] Artabanes’ former life in Persarmenia helped to unravel his plans for a new one in Constantinople. Gender bias sneaks into Procopius’ analysis, as it was prone to do. Similar to how Belisarius’ obsession with his wife Antonina impacted his military affairs in the Secret History, Artabanes’ schemes were undone by his wife—described by Procopius as a ‘relation of his’ who had married Artabanes when he was a young man— only, after years apart, to suddenly appear in Constantinople to thwart the new marriage by revealing that she remained legally married to Artabanes. In this instance, Procopius clearly commiserated with Artabanes’ ‘plight’, seeing the woman— pardon the modern expression— as a gold-digger, who had only sought out Artabanes because of his new-found fortune and fame. Relying heavily upon Artabanes’ side of the story, Procopius contends that Artabanes had repudiated her long ago, glibly commenting, ‘doubtless because one of those causes had developed such as lead to the estrangement of man and wife’. [xl]

Rejected by Artabanes, the spurned woman takes her case to Theodora, who makes one of her infrequent appearances in the Wars. Certainly, the focalisation on Theodora should raise our suspicions, since Theodora’s meddling in men and women’s marital affairs serves as a key line of attack employed against her in the Secret History.[xli] It is conceivable that this, like other episodes in the Wars concerning the empress, may have originated from the Secret History and were only integrated into the Wars after her death.[xlii] Even if, as I suppose, this episode is not a later insertion, it seems that Procopius sought to appeal to an audience in Constantinople, who—if not calling for Justinian’s assassination—may have hoped that the emperor would shift political course in the wake of Theodora’s death, a more conciliatory path that Justinian did in fact take.[xliii]

A notorious critic of women who played an active part in political affairs,[xliv] Procopius hardly hid his scorn when describing the empress’ role in blocking the union. He wrote:

Falling upon the mercy of the empress, she [Artabanes’ wife] requested that her husband take her back. The empress then—for it was her nature to side with women in distress—decided that Artabanes had to dwell with her whether he liked it or not.

Instead, Praiecta would marry the blue-blooded, John the grandson of Hypatius the nephew of the former emperor Anastasius.

Outwardly, Theodora made a reasonable choice, since John’s connections within Constantinople were certainly prestigious. Mirroring his approach in other parts of the Wars, Procopius indeed hesitates to censure the empress too severely, since one could read his statement concerning Theodora’s tendency to ‘assist unfortunate women’ on multiple levels. Instead, he concentrates on what he expected his readers to see as gendered norms. Like some other East Romans of his day, Procopius deemed that a husband’s control of his wife and their children was a manifestation of his masculinity. Therefore, for a woman—even an empress—to dictate whom Artabanes should marry, broke the acceptable pattern of sexual hierarchy and, I would suggest, in the historian’s mind, emasculated the general.

Due to legislation that protected wives from their increasingly powerful husbands, Theodora was certainly within her rights to prevent a wife from unlawfully being cast off.[xlv] Moreover, Procopius had reason to describe this encounter with care.[xlvi] Even though tradition granted historians leeway to speak uncomfortable truths,[xlvii] Procopius had to be careful not to push his censure of the empress too far.[xlviii] Procopius might argue here that Theodora was simply adhering to an ever more important aspect of imperial philanthropia, whereby, the imperial family— especially the empress—cared for strangers and the oppressed.[xlix]

In fact, in his other major work, Buildings, Procopius promotes this positive paradigm by presenting Theodora’s charitable deeds toward downtrodden women more constructively.[l] Theodora’s altruistic deeds towards the disenfranchised represents a central feature in the ample Byzantine sources friendly and/or more neutral to the empress.[li]So, Procopius here played both sides of the fence: the episode could be seen as highlighting Theodora’s well known charitable side, while simultaneously signalling to the empress’ detractors a more sinister critique of Theodora’s meddling, which is given a more sustained treatment in the Secret History.[lii]

We may also read Theodora’s decision to marry Praejecta to the esteemed offspring of the house of Anastasius, either positively or negatively.[liii] We might conclude that Theodora had ulterior motives, since even the casual reader can detect that the historian sought to show that Theodora cared less here about protecting the rights of a spurned wife, than about her family’s continuing rise up the Byzantine social ladder.[liv] Nevertheless, some within the early Byzantine audience would have appreciated Theodora, looking out for the best interests of her family.[lv] By protecting the welfare of her niece, Theodora simply followed accepted practices for Roman wives.[lvi]These alternate views built into the gender system concerning wives’ appropriate power, help to explain why each time Procopius condemned Theodora’s meddling, he had to argue that the empress had become involved for sinister reasons.[lvii] Moreover, it seems significant that Procopius does not link Theodora’s reluctance to give the marriage the green light, to the fact that Artabanes had killed her brother-in-law Sittas, albeit fairly in battle.

Procopius explains that once Theodora died, Artabanes immediately expelled his wife. Nevertheless, thwarted in his plans to marry Praejecta, he supposedly bore a simmering grudge against Justinian, which then allows another disgruntled Pers-Armenian, Arsaces, to bully him with a barrage of gendered insults into entering the plot to assassinate Justinian. This bullying of Artabanes echoes closely the bullying of Belisarius by Antonina in Secret History, which leads to both personal and military disasters. Moreover, the fact that Artabanes, and as we recall, Antonina only felt comfortable to act after Theodora’s death shows that it was the empress they feared.[lviii] Here I suspect we edge closer to Theodora’s true personality. It certainly fits the pattern of Procopius’ depiction of the imperial couple found in the Secret History, where Theodora is someone who refused to be swayed by others and was a formidable enemy; in contrast, Justinian was easy-going and readily influenced by others.[lix] Whichever way one interprets Procopius’ opinion about this encounter, in this instance, the formidable empress, Theodora, had bested the manly warrior, Artabanes.

By thwarting the ambitions of Artabanes, Justinian sowed the seeds for a future conspiracy—or at least this is how Procopius presents it. Indeed, Justinian’s powerful cousin Germanus’ and his son Justin are tempted to enter the plot partly because Procopius claims that Theodora had openly sought to block Germanus’ sons marriage prospects, a move which Juan Signes Condoner has suggested may stem from Germanus’ family ties to the powerful Western Anicii, which would have threatened Theodora’s future plans for her relatives. While I do not have time here today to discuss Procopius’ detailed and somewhat fishy recreation of the circumstances behind the bungled plot, Germanus and his sons emerge largely politically unscathed. Weakened politically by his failures in the West and frightened by his cousin’s moves against him, the pragmatic Justinian moved closer Germanus by placing him in command of a revitalised army of reconquest gathering to crush the Goths once and for all and allowing him to marry the 30-year old granddaughter of Theodoric and former wife of the Gothic king Vitigis, Matasuntha, which would have provided the disparate factions in Italy a symbolic marital coupling by which to rally behind. But to Procopius’ seemingly heartfelt regret expressed in both the Wars and the Secret History this never occurred, Germanus died in mid-550 before the military campaign’s launch, which not coincidently is around the same time that Procopius’ likely set the Secret History aside. We learn from sources other than Procopius that Matasuntha had refused to remarry and had after the great generals death given birth to a son named Germanus who can possibly be identified with the patricius Germanus, a leading senator in the reign of Emperor Maurice (r. 582–602) whose daughter married Maurice’s eldest son Theodosius. The rapid rise and fall of these families, helps us to understand why marital alliances play an part in Procopius’ thoughts on causation.

To conclude, the degree to which Procopius’ accounts of these marriage alliances may be regarded as accurate reflections of contemporary realities rather than literary devices, is something we can discuss further. Nevertheless, I believe that they can tell us something about Procopius’ authorial intents as well as the preoccupations of his intended audience. As we have seen in this short discussion, with his rather narrowly aimed barbs, Procopius, in both the Wars and the Secret History, deftly played upon the anxieties of noble parents from Constantinople’s upper crust— individuals, whose prestige and long-term relevance could depend upon finding a Mr. or Mrs. right for their offspring from a select pool of candidates who could always expect to be highly scrutinized by their peers.

[i] Sidonius, Epist. 1.5.10–11, 1.12–13.

[ii] Malalas Chron. 18.10.

[iii] CJ 5.4.23.1

[iv] Cooper, Roman Household,

[v] Proc. Secret History 17.7.

[vi] Stewart, ‘First Byzantine Emperor?’; McEvoy, ‘The Not so Curious Case of Aspar’.

[vii] Cooper, Roman Household, p. 113.

[viii] For a deeper discussion of this militarization in the fifth and sixth centuries, see Stewart, Soldier’s Life.

[ix] For a full discussion of these military families and the complex web of social networks between Byzantium’s leading generals, see Parnell, Justinian’s Men

[x] De cerimoniis 1.93: Εὑρεθεὶς δὲ ὁ εὐσεβέστατος δεσπότης Ἰουστινιανός, τηνικαῦτα κανδιδάτος ὢν….

[xi] Proc. Secret History 6.3

[xii] Croke, ‘Justinian under Justin’, p. 23-26.

[xiii] On the emperor’s relationship with his army throughout his long reign, see Koehn, Justinian und die Armee des frühen Byzanz.

[xiv] On Sittas and the circumstance surrounding his death, see Stewart, Masculinity and Power-Politics in the Age of Justinian, forthcoming 2020

[xv] Proc. Secret History 9.8

[xvi] We are not certain of this link—John of Ephesus (HE 2.10) only says that Sophia was the niece of Theodora, who had two sisters, yet most historians agree that Komito is the likeliest mother.

[xvii]Peter Heather in Rome Resurgent offers a sound narrative account that covers the planning, implementation, and long-term impact of Justinian’s Western military campaigns.

[xviii] Parnell, Justinian’s Men, p. 169.

[xix] Proc. Secret History 5.16-17. would have us believe. For the sound reasoning behind Belisarius and Antonina’s reluctance to link their daughter to Theodora’s low-born grandson, see Alan Cameron, ‘House of Anastasius’.

[xx] Proc Secret History 2.37, 5.18-24.

[xxi] Most recently, Evans, Power Game in Byzantium (add Pg #s)

[xxii] Comeron, ‘House of Anastasius’, 270-271.

[xxiii] As Hagith Sivan (Galla Placida, pp. 60-93) adroitly discusses, royal women in early Byzantium often served as marital prizes in generals’ struggles. One only needs to recall two famous examples from the fifth century: the empress Galla Placidia’s marriage to Honorius’ general Constantius, the future emperor Constantius III (r. 421— not recognised in the East) after the former had ‘rescued’ her from captivity under the Visigoths, and Aetius’ marriage of the rival general Bonifatius’ wife Pelagia (from whom he had a son, Gaudentius) after he had mortally wounded Bonfatius at the battle of Rimini in 432.

[xxiv]Proc. Wars 7.31.2. Dewing’s ‘immoderate desire’ captures the negative connotations of ἐξαισία τις ἐπιθυμία more accurately than Kaldellis’ ‘strong desire’. Compare this with the negative connotations in Secret History (9.30) that Procopius gives to Justinian’s ‘overpowering love (ἔρωτα ἐξαίσιον)’ for Theodora.

[xxv] For the hyper-sexual nature of women in late antique thought, see Herrin, ‘In Search of Byzantine Women’, p. 167; Neville, Anna Komnene, p. 16.

[xxvi] Proc. Secret History 1.40, 9.17-20, 16.5-18.

[xxvii] Unable to find any instances of Theodora’s infidelity during her marriage to Justinian, Procopius in the Secret History focused instead on her reputed sordid past. As Hartmut Ziche comments (‘Abusing Theodora’, p. 318), rather than highlight the developing Christian notion of redemption for prostitutes, which he does in Buildings 1.9-10, Procopius appealed ‘to traditional models of historical and moral discourse in which the concept of the redeemed sinner is still alien’. Brubaker (‘Sex, Lies, and Textuality’, pp. 94-100) distrusts this story concerning Theodora’s youthful sexual escapades, contending that Procopius tells us little about the ‘real’ Theodora. Peter Heather expresses similar doubts, Rome Resurgent, pp. 89. James Evans (Empress Theodora, p. 15) asserts that as an actress, Theodora may have prostituted herself prior to marrying Justinian. See too, Potter, Theodora: Actress, Empress, Saint, pp. 36-43; Signes Codoñer, ‘Prokops “Anekdota” und Justinians Nachfolge’. For the considerable number of prostitutes and brothels in sixth-century Constantinople, see Moorhead, Justinian, p. 36.

[xxviii] Neville, Anna Komnene, pp. 16-17.

[xxix] Williams, Roman Homosexuality; Kuefler, Manly Eunuch.

[xxx] Averil Cameron, Procopius, p. 141; Moorhead, Justinian, pp. 106-107; Kaldellis, Procopius of Caesarea, pp. 163-164; Signes Codoñer, ‘Prokops “Anekdota” und Justinians Nachfolge’, p. 62.

[xxxi]Proc. Wars 7.31.4 (trans. Kaldellis).

[xxxii]Proc. Wars 7.31.6(trans. Dewing): οἱ γὰρ ἄνθρωποι εὐημερίας ἐκ τοῦ παραλόγου ἐπιλαβόμενοι οὐ δύνανται τὴν διάνοιαν ἐνταῦθα ἑστάναι, ἀλλὰ καραδοκοῦσι τὰ πρόσω, καὶ ταῖς ἐλπίσιν ἐπίπροσθεν ἀεὶ χωροῦσιν, ἕως καὶ τῆς οὐ δέον ὑπαρξάσης αὐτοῖς εὐδαιμονίας στερήσονται.

[xxxiii] Proc. Wars 7.31.13. Procopius in the Secret History (4.32) attributed Belisarius’ capture of Gelimer and Vitigis to luck. This is a single-minded view of causation that I argued in chapter 3, Procopius rejects in the Wars.

[xxxiv] On the ways that military service offered non-Romans a means to overcome their ‘barbarity’, see Parnell, Justinian’s Men, pp. 33-76. Belisarius and Justinian were both native Latin speakers who hailed from the rural regions of Illyricum.

[xxxv] Stewart, Soldier’s Life, pp. 44-90.

[xxxvi] As Anthony Kaldellis remarks (Wars of Justinian, p. 441, n. 700) ‘not the office itself, which had been abolished in 541, but the now honorary title’.

[xxxvii]For the short supply of acceptable spouses for those from the upper crust of Byzantine society, see Moorhead, Justinian, p. 107, n. 13.

[xxxviii] John Moorhead posits (Justinian, p. 174) that Justinian’s reluctance to name an heir, stemmed from the emperor’s ‘canny’ sense of self-preservation and a desire to remain relevant.

[xxxix] For this pessimistic worldview in Procopius, see Van Nuffelen, ‘Wor (l) ds of Procopius’, pp. 40-52.

[xl] Proc. Wars 7.31.12. For the possible connection with this assertion and comments in the Secret History 17.24.26, with Procopius own possible marital woes, see the speculation in Treadgold, Early Byzantine Historians, p. 188. Divorce was an acceptable practice in Justinian’s Constantinople. Although more rigorist Christians advocated ‘the marital bond as an irreversible union of two individuals’, Justinian, in Novel 22, supported the idea that in the imperfect secular world, ‘whatever is bound is soluble’, quoted in Cooper, Roman Household, p. 147.

[xli] Brubaker, ‘Sex, Lies, and Textuality’, p. 100.

[xlii] Greatrex, ‘Composition of Procopius’ Persian Wars and John the Cappadocian’.

[xliii] Signes Codoñer, ‘Prokops “Anekdota” und Justinians Nachfolge’, pp. 78-81.

[xliv] James, Empresses and Power in Early Byzantium, pp. 86-87. For Procopius’ notes with disgust in the Secret History (17.17) that women found guilty of adultery could bring a counter suit and drag their husbands into court. Averil Cameron (Procopius) remains fundamental for Procopius’ attitude towards women. Though we should be careful when we brand Procopius a misogynist (Procopius, pp. 68, 75), since by modern standards every ancient historian could be branded a misogynist, especially when it came to their attitudes towards authoritative women. As Henning Börm has suggested to me (personal communication): ‘The whole point was to emphasize the social hierarchy: people stood over animals, freemen stood over slaves, Greeks and Romans stood over barbarians, senators stood over knights, men stood over eunuchs, and men stood over women. Whenever Procopius denounces the alleged breach of these rules, he simply follows the rules of historiography’.

[xlv] Cooper, Roman Household, p. 144.

[xlvi] Adrastos Omissi reviews (Emperors and Usurpers, pp. 36-39, 162-163) the art of ‘memory sanctions’ in late antique historiography, where unpalatable events or individuals were simply erased from the record to please the current ruling regime.

[xlvii]Börm,‘Genesis of the Anecdota’, pp. 305-346..

[xlviii] Yet, as Geoffrey Greatrex advises, even if the Secret History had been discovered, it is likely that Procopius would not have been executed. As Greatrex points out (‘Perceptions of Procopius’, pp. 89-90). Justinian was relatively lenient towards opponents and authors who criticised him and his policies openly during his reign. For further examples of his leniency, see Mal. Chron. 18.22, 18.147.

[xlix] Cooper, Roman Household, p. 114. For the overreliance on Procopius—in comparison to the rich lodes of information on Theodora found in other Byzantine sources—in many older and modern works on Theodora, see Harvey, ‘Theodora the Believing Queen’.

[l] Proc. Buildings, 5.2.7.

[li] Harvey, ‘Theodora the Believing Queen’, p. 224, n. 42, offers a thorough list of contemporary sources, including Procopius, praising the empress Theodora’s charitable attitude towards the disadvantaged.

[lii] Secret History, 17.27, discussed in Brubaker, ‘Sex, Lies, and Textuality’, p. 94.

[liii] On Anastasius and his family, see Haarer, Anastasius I.

[liv] For these ambitions, see Alan Cameron, ‘House of Anastasius’.

[lv] On the materfamilias in late antiquity, see Cooper, Roman Household, esp. pp. 77, 94-114.

[lvi] Cooper, Roman Household, p. 147.

[lvii] Proc. Wars 1.24.32-9, 5.2.3, 8.3.7-11, reveal that Procopius could support women when they made decisions that protected or advanced the careers of male family members.

[lviii] Some suggest that Theodora’s death indeed provided Procopius his original impetus to begin work on the Secret History, see, for example, Treadgold, Early Byzantine Historians, p. 187.

[lix] Allen, ‘Contemporary Portrayals of the Byzantine Empress’, p. 98.

It==

I have at one level wanted to suggest that costume, by communicating textually key information about identity, creates both social space but a sense of one’s place within it and that this mattered in particular in a sixth-century Gallic context

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Be that as it may, reflecting the increased militerization of the age, military men like Sittas could be found throughout the upper stratum of Byzantine society.[viii]

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(slide 8)

Add side note on Belisarius

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Theodora Steps In

A notorious critic of women who played an active part in political affairs,[xliv] Procopius hardly hid his scorn when describing the empress’ role in blocking the union. He wrote:

Instead, Praiecta would marry the blue-blooded, John the grandson of Hypatius the nephew of the former emperor Anastasius.

[i] Sidonius, Epist. 1.5.10–11, 1.12–13.

[ii] Malalas Chron. 18.10.

[iii] CJ 5.4.23.1

[iv] Cooper, Roman Household,

[v] Proc. Secret History 17.7.

[vi] Stewart, ‘First Byzantine Emperor?’; McEvoy, ‘The Not so Curious Case of Aspar’.

[vii] Cooper, Roman Household, p. 113.

[viii] For a deeper discussion of this militarization in the fifth and sixth centuries, see Stewart, Soldier’s Life.

[ix] For a full discussion of these military families and the complex web of social networks between Byzantium’s leading generals, see Parnell, Justinian’s Men

[x] De cerimoniis 1.93: Εὑρεθεὶς δὲ ὁ εὐσεβέστατος δεσπότης Ἰουστινιανός, τηνικαῦτα κανδιδάτος ὢν….

[xi] Proc. Secret History 6.3

[xii] Croke, ‘Justinian under Justin’, p. 23-26.

[xiii] On the emperor’s relationship with his army throughout his long reign, see Koehn, Justinian und die Armee des frühen Byzanz.

[xiv] On Sittas and the circumstance surrounding his death, see Stewart, Masculinity and Power-Politics in the Age of Justinian, forthcoming 2020

[xv] Proc. Secret History 9.8

[xvi] We are not certain of this link—John of Ephesus (HE 2.10) only says that Sophia was the niece of Theodora, who had two sisters, yet most historians agree that Komito is the likeliest mother.

[xvii]Peter Heather in Rome Resurgent offers a sound narrative account that covers the planning, implementation, and long-term impact of Justinian’s Western military campaigns.

[xviii] Parnell, Justinian’s Men, p. 169.

[xx] Proc Secret History 2.37, 5.18-24.

[xxi] Most recently, Evans, Power Game in Byzantium (add Pg #s)

[xxii] Comeron, ‘House of Anastasius’, 270-271.

[xxv] For the hyper-sexual nature of women in late antique thought, see Herrin, ‘In Search of Byzantine Women’, p. 167; Neville, Anna Komnene, p. 16.

[xxvi] Proc. Secret History 1.40, 9.17-20, 16.5-18.

[xxviii] Neville, Anna Komnene, pp. 16-17.

[xxix] Williams, Roman Homosexuality; Kuefler, Manly Eunuch.

[xxxi]Proc. Wars 7.31.4 (trans. Kaldellis).

[xxxv] Stewart, Soldier’s Life, pp. 44-90.

[xxxvi] As Anthony Kaldellis remarks (Wars of Justinian, p. 441, n. 700) ‘not the office itself, which had been abolished in 541, but the now honorary title’.

[xxxvii]For the short supply of acceptable spouses for those from the upper crust of Byzantine society, see Moorhead, Justinian, p. 107, n. 13.

[xxxix] For this pessimistic worldview in Procopius, see Van Nuffelen, ‘Wor (l) ds of Procopius’, pp. 40-52.

[xli] Brubaker, ‘Sex, Lies, and Textuality’, p. 100.

[xlii] Greatrex, ‘Composition of Procopius’ Persian Wars and John the Cappadocian’.

[xliii] Signes Codoñer, ‘Prokops “Anekdota” und Justinians Nachfolge’, pp. 78-81.

[xlv] Cooper, Roman Household, p. 144.

[xlvii]Börm,‘Genesis of the Anecdota’, pp. 305-346..

[l] Proc. Buildings, 5.2.7.

[lii] Secret History, 17.27, discussed in Brubaker, ‘Sex, Lies, and Textuality’, p. 94.

[liii] On Anastasius and his family, see Haarer, Anastasius I.

[liv] For these ambitions, see Alan Cameron, ‘House of Anastasius’.

[lv] On the materfamilias in late antiquity, see Cooper, Roman Household, esp. pp. 77, 94-114.

[lvi] Cooper, Roman Household, p. 147.

[lvii] Proc. Wars 1.24.32-9, 5.2.3, 8.3.7-11, reveal that Procopius could support women when they made decisions that protected or advanced the careers of male family members.

[lviii] Some suggest that Theodora’s death indeed provided Procopius his original impetus to begin work on the Secret History, see, for example, Treadgold, Early Byzantine Historians, p. 187.

[lix] Allen, ‘Contemporary Portrayals of the Byzantine Empress’, p. 98.

Identities are categories: means of organising the world. As such, they are constructed as signs, or groups of signs, and function in the Imaginary as well as Symbolic registers. That is, the signified is the ideal member of the category (young woman, male elder, monk, king etc.), created by social and ritual mores, etc. Identities are constituted in citation and in performativity.

Identity is itself a motion towards an ideal. That ideal can never be attained, because it never had a pure, originary existence. It’s a moti

Those ideals are always themselves changing in the course of social practice. They can never be entirely recreated so it’s critically mistaken to talk of the maintenance of an identity by a group, whether the bearers of the Traditionskern or an equally mythical group of Gothic Königsfreie; no such thing had ever existed that was capable of maintenance in the first place. It was always already in a state of renegotiation and reinvention.

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Be that as it may, reflecting the increased militerization of the age, military men like Sittas could be found throughout the upper stratum of Byzantine society.[viii]

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Add side note on Belisarius

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Theodora Steps In

A notorious critic of women who played an active part in political affairs,[xliv] Procopius hardly hid his scorn when describing the empress’ role in blocking the union. He wrote:

Instead, Praiecta would marry the blue-blooded, John the grandson of Hypatius the nephew of the former emperor Anastasius.

[i] Sidonius, Epist. 1.5.10–11, 1.12–13.

[ii] Malalas Chron. 18.10.

[iii] CJ 5.4.23.1

[iv] Cooper, Roman Household,

[v] Proc. Secret History 17.7.

[vi] Stewart, ‘First Byzantine Emperor?’; McEvoy, ‘The Not so Curious Case of Aspar’.

[vii] Cooper, Roman Household, p. 113.

[viii] For a deeper discussion of this militarization in the fifth and sixth centuries, see Stewart, Soldier’s Life.

[ix] For a full discussion of these military families and the complex web of social networks between Byzantium’s leading generals, see Parnell, Justinian’s Men

[x] De cerimoniis 1.93: Εὑρεθεὶς δὲ ὁ εὐσεβέστατος δεσπότης Ἰουστινιανός, τηνικαῦτα κανδιδάτος ὢν….

[xi] Proc. Secret History 6.3

[xii] Croke, ‘Justinian under Justin’, p. 23-26.

[xiii] On the emperor’s relationship with his army throughout his long reign, see Koehn, Justinian und die Armee des frühen Byzanz.

[xiv] On Sittas and the circumstance surrounding his death, see Stewart, Masculinity and Power-Politics in the Age of Justinian, forthcoming 2020

[xv] Proc. Secret History 9.8

[xvi] We are not certain of this link—John of Ephesus (HE 2.10) only says that Sophia was the niece of Theodora, who had two sisters, yet most historians agree that Komito is the likeliest mother.

[xvii]Peter Heather in Rome Resurgent offers a sound narrative account that covers the planning, implementation, and long-term impact of Justinian’s Western military campaigns.

[xviii] Parnell, Justinian’s Men, p. 169.

[xx] Proc Secret History 2.37, 5.18-24.

[xxi] Most recently, Evans, Power Game in Byzantium (add Pg #s)

[xxii] Comeron, ‘House of Anastasius’, 270-271.

[xxv] For the hyper-sexual nature of women in late antique thought, see Herrin, ‘In Search of Byzantine Women’, p. 167; Neville, Anna Komnene, p. 16.

[xxvi] Proc. Secret History 1.40, 9.17-20, 16.5-18.

[xxviii] Neville, Anna Komnene, pp. 16-17.

[xxix] Williams, Roman Homosexuality; Kuefler, Manly Eunuch.

[xxxi]Proc. Wars 7.31.4 (trans. Kaldellis).

[xxxv] Stewart, Soldier’s Life, pp. 44-90.

[xxxvi] As Anthony Kaldellis remarks (Wars of Justinian, p. 441, n. 700) ‘not the office itself, which had been abolished in 541, but the now honorary title’.

[xxxvii]For the short supply of acceptable spouses for those from the upper crust of Byzantine society, see Moorhead, Justinian, p. 107, n. 13.

[xxxix] For this pessimistic worldview in Procopius, see Van Nuffelen, ‘Wor (l) ds of Procopius’, pp. 40-52.

[xli] Brubaker, ‘Sex, Lies, and Textuality’, p. 100.

[xlii] Greatrex, ‘Composition of Procopius’ Persian Wars and John the Cappadocian’.

[xliii] Signes Codoñer, ‘Prokops “Anekdota” und Justinians Nachfolge’, pp. 78-81.

[xlv] Cooper, Roman Household, p. 144.

[xlvii]Börm,‘Genesis of the Anecdota’, pp. 305-346..

[l] Proc. Buildings, 5.2.7.

[lii] Secret History, 17.27, discussed in Brubaker, ‘Sex, Lies, and Textuality’, p. 94.

[liii] On Anastasius and his family, see Haarer, Anastasius I.

[liv] For these ambitions, see Alan Cameron, ‘House of Anastasius’.

[lv] On the materfamilias in late antiquity, see Cooper, Roman Household, esp. pp. 77, 94-114.

[lvi] Cooper, Roman Household, p. 147.

[lvii] Proc. Wars 1.24.32-9, 5.2.3, 8.3.7-11, reveal that Procopius could support women when they made decisions that protected or advanced the careers of male family members.

[lviii] Some suggest that Theodora’s death indeed provided Procopius his original impetus to begin work on the Secret History, see, for example, Treadgold, Early Byzantine Historians, p. 187.

[lix] Allen, ‘Contemporary Portrayals of the Byzantine Empress’, p. 98.

Review of Graphic Signs of Identity, Faith, and Power in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

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Here is a draft of a recent review I have written: enjoy!

This illuminating collection of essays surveys ‘visual media in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages (p. 5),’ from a variety of methodological angles and scholarly disciplines.

Larry Hurtado’s opening chapter reconsiders second and third-century Christians’ fondness for allegory and symbol. Birthed within the pagan Roman cultural system, early Christian symbols, such as the chi-ro and iota-chi, were adopted and adapted from earlier pre-Christian usage. The author concludes, that by utilising signs and emblems familiar to believers and non-believers, Christians could construct a community based on a unique, yet recognisable symbolic universe.

The fourth-century poems by Optatian—composed during the reign of the first Christian Roman emperor Constantine (r. 306-337)—serve as a pivot for chapter two’s look at the intimate connection between representational art and written texts. Optatian’s fondness for chi-ro emblems offered a newly converted Empire a symbol with a range of cosmological representations—Christian and non-Christian. Constantine indeed wielded christograms primarily as representations of imperial and military power. Yet, foreshadowing a more devout Christian Roman world to come, the authors observe a shift in Optatian’s later poems (according to some scholars, misattributed to Optatian) where the chi-ro functions to signify Christ’s, rather than the emperor’s, omnipotence.

Brent Brenk turns to the images found in the Notitia dignitatum, a unique Late Roman document, which provides an invaluable outline of the early fifth-century Roman administrative system. While some bemoan the text’s lack of focus on the individuals who operated within this organisation, as Brenk explains, ‘The document wanted to eternalize the institutions of the late Roman state, not its staff and servants (p.122).’

In an early Christian world, where the barriers between heaven and earth were more porous than today, David Ganz demonstrates that texts were more than just human ideas recorded with ink on parchment. Indeed, letters, words, and colours could act for their devout readers as conduits to the spiritual realm.

James Crow turns his eye to the use of graphic signs on late Roman megastructures, such as walls, bridges, gates, and aqueducts. While the use of Christian symbols on this infrastructure broadcast triumphal imperial and Christian ideologies, some symbols were positioned in places of structural weakness well outside of human eyesight. Therefore, as in the case of Constantinople’s main aqueduct, these hidden symbols of Christian power ensured ‘divine protection to the city’s vital lifeline (p. 165).’

Ine Jacobs stresses that we should not read cross ‘graffiti’, which adorns many pagan monuments and statues left over from late antiquity, as signs of Christian vandalism and intolerance, but as practical defensive devices. Feeling threatened by menacing spiritual forces, late antique Christians etched their symbols as protection against these pagan objects, which they believed were imbued with hostile spirits.

Following Jacobs’ pathway, Henry Maguire explains that late antique designs and decorative patterns displayed on a wide range of objects, which to the modern eye seem to be merely ornamental, instead offered their ancient owners’ articles ‘invested with supernatural powers (p 223).’

Caroline Goodson narrows her focus to Christian symbols found on mass-produced oil lamps. While some specialised lamps were designed for use by Christian elites in ceremonies, the bulk of lamps adorned with christograms were purchased by members of the regular population interested in being part of a wider pious community.

Christopher Eger scrutinises objects bearing Christian symbols with more specific links to imperial power: amulets, clothing, swords, cross-bows, and belts. Since these official badges of rank were worn by high-ranking members of the bureaucracy and military, one is not surprised to learn that they offered a reminder to their ancient audience that these individuals served under the auspices of Divine and imperial authority. Yet, the author offers a caveat, concluding that competing symbols, without specific Christian significance, remained a powerful alternative throughout Late Antiquity.

Unsurprisingly, it was during the reign of the monk-like emperor Theodosius II (r. 408-50) that we see the first use of Christian imperial monograms on Roman coinage. Ildar Garipzanov supposes that some may find it more surprising that this trend continued during the reigns of the line of soldier-emperors who followed the Theodosians. However, as Garipzanov explains, appropriating these powerful Christian symbols offered these mostly unpolished soldiers-emperors a means to accentuate their civilized Christian Romanitas.

The final chapter by Anna Muthesius inspects a wide-range of Hellenistic, imperial, and Christian images and motifs on Byzantine silks from the sixth to the eleventh centuries. Luxury items eagerly sought out by elites from inside and outside of Byzantium, silks offered a perfect medium to broadcast Byzantium’s long history and sense of cultural superiority. In an empire that cherished its Hellenistic, Roman, and Christian heritage, it should not surprise that a mixture of Christian and non-Christian images and symbolic metaphors spoke to this historic memory.

To close, as each chapter in this cohesive study reveals so vividly, to understand graphic signs in late antiquity and the early middle ages, one must first grasp the mentalities beneath.

Review of Motions of Late Antiquity: Essays on Religion, Politics, and Society in Honour of Peter Brown

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Once again, I must apologise for my lack of recent posting. To keep everyone updated, it looks as though I will finally get to publish my book on Procopius. Since the contract has not been signed, I cannot reveal the publisher yet, but the tentative title is Masculinity, Identity & Power-Politics in the Age of Justinian: A study of Procopius. The editor, who approached me initially was very happy with my proposal..so fingers crossed I will start on the draft next month. I am also preparing a proposal for an edited handbook for Routledge on Gender and Identity in Byzantium…once again nothing finalised, but the editor approached me about this one as well and I have two very good co-editors in mind so stay tuned on that front. To prepare myself for this project I have been immersing myself in recent work on Late Antiquity and Byzantium…I am constantly amazed about how many bright scholars there are in our field. What follows is a draft of one of three reviews I am writing at the moment. I was working under a strict-word limit so forgive me for the lack of depth…I already had to cull 200 words.

It has been nearly fifty years since the publication of Peter Brown’s trailblazing, The World of Late Antiquity (1971). It is fair to say that this work—which emphasized cultural germination in a period (200-800) long remembered for decay—played an essential part in establishing Late Antiquity as its own unique historical epoch.

Yet, Late Antiquity has experienced some recent growing pains. Detractors have countered Brown’s more optimistic vision of the break-up of the Western Roman Empire. Establishing clear spatial and temporal boundaries for the field also continues to spark debate.

Into this disputed arena arrives a second festschrift for Brown. Based on a conference held at Princeton to honour Brown in 20ll, the seventeen essays in this volume offers readers keen insights into an assortment of regions, time-periods, and methodological approaches.

Following an Introduction by the editors, which does an excellent job recounting Brown and his disciples’ numerous contributions to the field, the opening chapters respond to some of the criticisms discussed above. Ian Wood suggests that late antique scholars should focus less on the ‘creation’ of modern Europe, and take a global approach by turning their attentions Eastward to developments in Byzantium, Persia and the Muslim world.

Leaning heavily upon Brown’s Through the Eye of the Needle, Walter Pohl downplays the economic and political ramifications of ‘Rome’s fall’. He posits instead that economic decline and social transformation in the West is better explained by shifting attitudes amongst Romans and non-Romans Christians towards wealth. In the post-imperial West, money flowed away from the secular elites and into the coffers of a Church, more interested in salvation than trade. I was left wondering, if this was true, then what about the Byzantine East? I also question how heavily the secular elites in Western Europe followed these rigorist Christian tenets on wealth.

As one would expect in a volume dedicated to Brown, a number of chapters deal with late antique religious practices.

Philippa Townsend uses Brown’s, The Body and Society, as a pivot to question the standard contention that the Manichaean’s cosmological dualism was matched by their ‘social dualism’.

Utilizing the fifth-century Life of Hypatius by Callinicus as a window into late antique views on class, Jaclyn Maxwell examines the author’s attitudes towards a wide social spectrum of guests who visited his rural monastery. Callinicus, Maxwell concludes, did not favour either rich or poor, but judged the guests as distinct individuals.

Daniel Schwartz uncovers a similarly even- handed approach in his source, the metrical homily, On the Fall of Idols, by Jacob of Sarug (c. 451-521). Schwartz concludes, that Jacob preferred a ‘persuasive and moral approaches to Christianization”, rather than the violent approach frequently condoned by more rigorist Christians.

Volker Menz, however, focuses on the much more violent Vita of the mid-fifth century presbyter and Miaphysite, Barsuma. As a member of a threatened sect, the Miaphysites, the author of the life was far less interested in presenting Barusma as a converter of ‘Jews, pagans, and Samaritans, but as someone who purified the Holy Land by eliminating his enemies (p. 244).’

Reflecting the recent revolution in Syriac studies and Middle Eastern Christianity, David Michelson resituates the late fifth-century Roman monophysite Philoxenos of Mabbug within an older tradition of Cappadocian theologians.

Ariel López applies modern knowledge about the Nile’s seasonal currents and flooding patterns to shine light on core “truths” concerning voyages, famine and premature death to be found in late antique Egyptian hagiography.

Michael Maas turns to the complicated rivalry between two late antique agrarian empires, Byzantium and Persia. Rather than highlight discord, Maas examines instead potential collaborations in the fifth and sixth centuries. Bucking standard consensus, he takes seriously the mid-sixth Byzantine historian Procopius claim that on his deathbed the Roman emperor Arcadius (r. 395-408) had asked the Persian emperor Yazdgrid I (r. 399-420) to act as guardian for his young son, Theodosius II (r. 408-450).

Several chapters examine the shadowy rise of post-imperial worlds in the East and the West. Drawing on a letter by the Gaul Sidonius Apollinaris (476) and a later inscription from a little-known bishop, Zeno of Mérida (483), Damián Fernandez highlights how these authors’ portraits of the Visigothic king Euric (c. 440-478) offer insights into these authors’ attitudes towards the Eurican monarchy, but just as importantly explain how Euric and his backers saw themselves in a post-Roman Iberia.

Philip Rousseau, posits that while Gregory of Tours lived in a ‘new’ age, his thought-world and moral compass—both as a historian and as a bishop—remained firmly rooted in the ‘ancient practices and edifices’ of a vanishing Roman world.

Following Brown’s call to break down boundaries between West and East, Stefan Elders argues provocatively and convincingly that Amanda’s of Maastricht’ missionary activity in the Frankish kingdom and beyond in the 620s and 630s must be understood from the wider vantage of late antique politics at a time when the Merovingian and Byzantine courts allied. Pointing out the similarities between Amandus’ forced baptisms with East Roman imperial tradition, Elders suggests that Amandus worked under the auspices of the Merovingian king Dagobert, rather than the papacy in Rome as is commonly supposed. This was my favourite chapter in the book.

Shifting to the late antique Muslim East, Jack Tannous’s chapter on the Life of Simeon of the Olives (c. 750) highlights the difficulties of uncovering accurate details about Christians living under Muslim rule when our sources are few and flawed.

Yannis Papadogiannakis, on the other hand, sees in the seventh-century erotapokriseis by Anastasius of Sinai a day-to-day guidebook for Christians living under Muslim rule.

Janet Nelson chapter concludes the study by revisiting the contested notion of a Carolingian renaissance through the historiographical lens of law.

Overall, the disparate approaches found in this study reveal the fresh perspectives that late antique scholars can offer. Yet, their somewhat disjointed vision of the age also points to some continuing challenges.

As many of the contributors to this volume comment, Peter Brown is a uniquely gifted linguist, writer, and historian. Some of Late Antiquity’s current malaise may indeed be attributed to the difficulty for the new guard to match Brown’s brilliance as both a synthesizer and story-teller.

Fine Line Between Fear in Courage in Book III of Procopius’s Vandalic Wars

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Just got back from giving a paper in Kalamazoo Michigan. I have been very busy teaching and proofing some forthcoming articles so have neglected the blog. To remedy this I am attaching the paper given without the slide show. This is very much a work in progress and this version is missing footnotes, but enjoy anyway:

Having recently focused in a trio of articles on the mid-sixth century Byzantine historian Procopius literary approach and, and in particular his ideas on the links between masculinity, courage, and Romanitas in his Gothic Wars, when first approached me about a paper for Barbarian Kingdoms, I thought initially to apply a similar approach to Procopius’ account of the earlier campaigns in North Africa against the Vandals.

Yet, I soon discovered that, in the first book of Vandalic Wars, issues of courage and manliness take a back seat to the emotion of fear. Put more simply: the Byzantines seemed scared shitless throughout most of book III. I am certainly not the first to note this emphasis. Several scholars have drawn recent attention to Procopius’ stress on the Roman high-commands’ fears and trepidations after the Emperor Justinian announced the campaign to take North Africa from the Vandals only a year after agreeing to the Eternal Peace with the Persians. And indeed, only a year and a half after the Emperor’s near overthrow during an uprising known as the Nika Revolt. As we can see in this passage from Wars, Fear of the Vandals’ military prowess in the wake of their string of fifth-century triumphs over the Romans also played a part in this apprehension. Justinian’s magistrates and generals feared a repeat of the disastrous naval campaign in 468 against the Vandals, which had seen a formidable Roman naval force destroyed by Vandal fire-ships just off the shore of North Africa, and left the Empire finances in tatters. Yet, in Procopius telling, the Roman generals were too frightened to say anything to the emperor. Only the praetorian prefect John the Cappadocian— a man generally despised by the historian—had the nerve to warn the emperor about the financial and political ramifications of his venture. Heeding John’s advice, Justinian relented, abandoning his plan.

(slide 3)

It takes a religious vision to change the devout emperor’s mind. Procopius explains that a visiting bishop had advised the emperor that God had visited him in a dream and commanded the bishop to remind Justinian that “after undertaking the task of protecting Christians in Libya from tyrants” the emperor “for no good reason had become afraid”. God would be fighting on his side “and make him master of Libya”. With his confidence restored, Justinian assembled an invasion force with Belisarios in command.

Since Procopius probably included Belisarios in this original group of hesitant generals, some have seen it as a subtle effort by the historian, even at this early stage, to cast Belisarius in a disparaging light.[1] For these revisionists, it offers further proof that Procopius was against Justinian’s campaigns in the West from the beginning, and no toady of Belisarios even at this early stage. Today I hope to refute these claims, suggesting that such views simplify the role that the multifaceted Greek concept of fear plays in Procopius and other early Byzantine writers dealing with military matters. Far from just a negative trait, for Procopius fear, in a multitude of contexts, functions as an essential aspect of sound generalship and soldiering. In taking this stance, Procopius follows closely maxims found in Byzantine military manuals, a connection which I will highlight primarily via the PowerPoint.

Let us open by making some general observations on the role of fear in Wars and in Late Antique historiography and military manuals more generally.[2]

First the bad.

In battle, fear leads to panic, which not surprisingly leads to disaster. It is little surprise then that Late Antique armies wanted to limit their own fear while, at the same time, maximise their enemies’ fear. There were numerous ways to achieve this aim. With some qualifications, armies were encouraged to shout and make noise to rattle their enemies to panic.

(slide 4)

Certain tactics and strategies such as the bait and switch tactics favoured by the Hunnic cavalry were designed to induce the maximum amount of panic and fear in their foes.

(Slide 5)

A general needed to monitor his men’s fear levels before and during battle. His role was two-fold. Depending on the army’s mood he, could either boost their courage by easing their trepidation or regulate their ardour by instilling a bit of “needed” fear.

(slide 6)

Set-speeches before battle offered a general a means to ease his soldiers’ fears.

Managing his soldiers’ fear during the din and changing fortune of battle served as another vital duty for generals.

The Wars teems with instances of generals either controlling their soldiers fear or failing to do so. To take just two examples, At the battle of Mammes in 534, the Roman general Solomon’s quick thinking to dismount during a cavalry charge when he noticed his mount and men were terrified of the Berber camels changed tactics by dismounting and therefore obtained a notable victory for the Romans. Conversely, when the Gothic King Totila turned and fled at the fateful battle of Busta Gallorum, it proved devastating to the Gothic cause, as much for the psychological fear it caused to the remaining Gothic soldiers, as for the loss of a leader.

Overconfident troops could be just as dangerous as fearful troops. In the Persian Wars when Belisarios fails to quash his men’s eagerness for battle, a defeat follows.

We also find several accounts in Wars where Belisarius purposefully frightens his men to counter their dangerous zeal. Fear too could be used as a motivational tool, as when the Vandal King Gelimer warns his men that their wives would fall captive to the Romans if they did not defeat them at the fateful battle of Tricamerum in December of 533.

(slide 7)

An ideal Roman general needed to be feared both by the enemy and his own soldiers. A general’s reputation could strike such fear in the enemy that they could be cowed before a sword was drawn. We see an example of this paradigm, at the early stages of the Vandal campaign when Procopius suggests that part of the reason the Moors failed to ally with the Vandals against the Byzantines was out of “fear” of Belisarius’ reputation. Only when Belisarios returns to Constantinople do they recover their courage and attack the Romans, which in book 4 undermines many of Belisarius’ earlier accomplishments

(slide 8)

Lastly, as Byzantine war manuals continually harp on, a general needed to “fear” all the unknowns before and during battle. This fear could either overwhelm him or spur him to victory.

(slide 9)

Indeed, motivated by “fear”, a good general sweat the details that would prove the difference in battles where the sides were evenly matched. This helps to explain why we should not see Procopius’ depiction of Belisarios’ constant fretting before and after battles, as some modern scholars do, necessarily as criticisms, indeed, the opposite is likely true.

So, we see that Procopius and Byzantine military planners could see fear as a positive or a negative. Let us now examine more closely to how fear shapes Procopios’ narrative in the first book of his Vandal War.

Seeking an explanation for the Vandals’ successes and the Romans defeats during the fifth century, The Vandal Wars’ Prologue submits that Western decay originated during the reign of the Western Emperor Honorius (ruled 395-423) and escalated during the reigns of his successor Valentinian III and the Eastern Emperor Theodosius II. Procopius chooses to see this decline through a moral rather than a political lens. In sharp contrast to the soldier-emperor, Theodosius I (ruled 379-396), Honorius, Theodosius II, and Valentinian’s lack of traditional military virtues meant they were incapable of intimidating barbarian peoples in typical Roman fashion.[3] Consequently, the “Gothic nations”, which for Procopius included the Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, and Gepids ran amok and seized their lands, and in the case of Valentinian his close family members——it also foreshadows Belisarios coming victory over the Goths where many of the Vandal soldiers end up losing their wives and families to the Romans.[4]

In Procopius versions of events, the tides begin to shift back in the Roman’s favour, with the deaths of Theodosius and Valentinian in the 450s, and the return of a series of soldier-emperors in the East and the West. Despite their military debacles, The Western Emperor Majorian and in the Eastern Roman Emperor Leo I receive praise for at least standing up to the Vandals and becoming, to borrow Procopius’ own words, “objects of phoberos “fear” to their enemies”.

Although the historian provides a muddled and inaccurate description of Majorian’s reign and his aborted attempt to invade Vandalic North Africa in 460, he offers a much more accurate vision of Leo I’s ambitious campaign in 468. As a number of recent scholars have posited, Leo I’s shattering defeat in 468, provides the cipher for understanding the Romans’ surprising triumph in 533.[5] The two campaigns have been described accurately as mirror images of each other.

In comparison to Belisarius’ rather modest force, Procopius describes Leo’s expedition as a large-scale affair. Combining forces from the Western and Eastern Empire, Leo and his high-command organised a three-prong operation—with his eyes on Carthage— a formerly independent Roman warlord Marcellinus took Sardinia from the Vandals.[6] Meanwhile, the commander and future emperor, Basiliscus sailed the bulk of the Roman navy just south of Carthage to Mercurium where they prepared to assault the Vandal capital; lastly, a small fleet led by the Eastern Comes rei militaris Heracleius successfully occupied the Vandal stronghold of Tripolis. Heracleius and his army then set out towards Byzacena to link up with Basiliscus’ troops when they arrived in Proconsular province. Procopius, explained that in the face of such overwhelming strength even the formidable Vandal King Gaiseric was prepared to capitulate.[7] However, Basiliscus, either through treachery or cowardice delayed his attack on Carthage, granting Gaiseric the chance to launch his fire-ships. Even then, Procopius hints that, if Basiliscus had not abandoned his men to sail back to Constantinople, the Romans might have still won the day. The tale of Basiliscus thus serves as an internal exemplum by which to compare the actions and manly characters of the Vandalic Wars two main protagonists, Belisarios and Gelimer.

So, we can see that Procopius has already shown the reader that the fear that had gripped the capital in the summer of 533, while understandable, was largely based on the false premise of Vandalic military superiority. Consequently, while Procopius included himself amongst those stifled by fear when war was first declared; he also makes it clear that he was among the first to discover that such fears were misguided. Procopius explains that he had a dream, which made him eager to go on the campaign since it implied that the Romans would emerge triumphant. Though Anthony Kaldellis has plausibly pointed out this dream’s possible ambiguities, I believe with others that we should take it at face value. In fact, it is just one of many places where Procopios grants himself foresight that others in Wars besides Belisarios lack.

(slide 10)

It also seems significant to me that fear plays a largely positive role during the Romans’ arduous three-month journey to Vandalic North Africa, where almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Procopius provides a finely crafted tale advancing a step-by-step guide on how to transform terror into triumph.

First, Belisarios needs to harness fear to obtain control of his potentially insubordinate heterogeneous army during their nearly disastrous journey from Constantinople to Sicily.

Stalled by a lack of winds, the fleet anchors at Abydos. With discipline breaking down, shortly after making landfall Belisarius famously executes two allied Hunnic soldiers who had murdered a colleague in a drunken dispute. Rejecting the Huns pleas that Roman law did not apply to them as allies, he crucified the two Huns in plain view of his entire army. To explain Belisarios’ reasoning, Procopius has the commander deliver a speech to his army, where he declares that there can be no victory without one maintain the proper balance between courage and justice. Procopius then inserts a third factor into his narrative, noting that when the soldiers looked upon the two impaled men “an overwhelming fear washed over them” and, straight away the army’s discipline improves.

Things grow only graver for the Romans after they set sail once more. Betrayed by the penny-pinching pratorean prefect John (whom I suspect has had a large influence on modern airline cuisine preparation), tainted water and bread leads to the spread of disease throughout the assault force. Barely staving off disaster, Belisarios and his still-terrified army manage to finally arrive to Sicily.

The foreboding ghosts of previous naval defeats at the hands of the Vandals, still looms large. Like any good Byzantine general, Belisarios frets about his lack of military intelligence concerning the Vandals military capabilities and their awareness about his impending attack.

(slide 11)

Procopius inserts himself once again into the narrative, explaining that Belisarios sent him to check the island for signs or information on enemy ambushes. Favoured once again with the gift of foresight, “fortune” (epiteekon) intervenes and Prokopios happens upon a child-hood friend involved in the shipping-business in Syracuse; the friend assures Procopius that the Vandals were completely unaware of the impending Byzantines and in fact the Vandal fleet was busy putting down an insurrection in Sardinia.

As Andy Merrills suggests, the merchant’s knowledge about the Vandalic navy’s whereabouts and the North-African regimes awareness of the impending invasion probably had to do with the regional merchant-sailing community’s connection to what we rather incorrectly describe as the Vandal navy, but probably consisted primarily of long-standing members of the North African merchant networks. Reassured that the Vandals were not expecting them, the Roman fleet prepares to depart Sicily and Belisarios, & Procopios, at least, head to North Africa with a bit more confidence.[8]

3.14

Back at sea, Belisarios mulls over an invasion strategy, which would equally surprise the Vandals and just as importantly alleviate his soldiers’ dual terror of the sea and the Vandals. As he does frequently in Wars, Procopius crafts a pair of set-speeches to cover the main issues. Following closely Basiliscus’ earlier route, the admiral Archeleus argues that since Gelimer and the Vandals were pre-occupied with other threats, the fleet should cut the head off the snake by heading straight to Carthage, where there was a safe-harbor just south of the city that could be used as a safe base, by which to swiftly capture the Vandal’s capital.

(slide 13)

Belisarios rejects this plan primarily because of….surprise surprise… his soldiers’ terror of remaining on the ships, which he argues would cripple the campaign if a storm struck and/or the Vandal forces met them before they disembarked. As we can see once again following Byzantine military maxims, His strategy called instead for most his men land in a deserted territory 240 km south of Carthage, whilst the navy with a contingent of bowmen would shadow Belisarios for the advance North. This strategy also had the benefit of the element of surprise, splitting up potentially mutinous troops, and allowing Belisarios’ the needed time to restore his men’s courage.

(slide 14)

Belisarios prevails and the Roman soldiers hesitantly take their first steps onto Vandal territory. Their unmolested landing, however, does little to quash their terror. Once again, however, Procopius shifts his focus to fear’s positive side. In the historian’s telling, spurred on by a combination of Belsiarios exhortations and their “fear” (τοι φόβου) of being left exposed to the enemy, the Roman soldiers’ enthusiastically make camp and while digging the trench miraculously strike water.[9] Procopius explains that at the time he had told Belisarios that it served as a further sign that God had preordained their victory. Now whether or not Procopios really believed this assertion, is an argument for another day.

Controlling his soldiers’ natural urges to indiscipline continues to be an issue and Belisarios once again must censor his soldiers’ for taking fruits from the local Libyan orchids.

After marching to the outskirts of the unwalled sea-side city of Syllectus, Belisarios attempted to coax those he describes as the local Libyans, whom Procopius describes as Romans of old, to accept a letter from Justinian which argued that the Byzantines were not making war on the Vandals by breaking the treaty signed in the previous century with Geiseric, but merely punishing the usurper Gelimer who had wrongfully overthrown the rightful Vandal rex. The locals, however, did not at this stage dare to publish emperor’s letter openly. The Libyan’s fear of Gelimer and the Vandals at this stage surpassed their fear of the strangers from Constantinople.

(slide 16)

Gelimer finally learns of Belsiarios impending arrival and after having his royal rivals murdered prepares what should have been a devastating and decisive counter-attack. The narrative that follows has been rightly described as some of the most complex and asymmetric in all of Wars. To sum up very simply, A combination of God, Fortune, Vandal missteps, and Belisarios’ sage decision to divide his army preserves the Byzantines from annihilation.

(slide 17)

Misjudging his arrival to Decimum, Gelimer’s brother Ammatta falls prey to a Roman ambush led by the general John the Armenian, which sees Ammatta and his force wiped out. At the same time, Gelimer’s nephew Gibamundus compounds the disaster. Here, Fear of the unknown turns the tide. Yet this time it works in the Romans advantage, having never seen a Hun, Gibamundus and his 2,000 men panic and are easily cut-down by the Roman allies.

The bulk of the Vandal forces, however, remained safely under Gelimer’s command. Procopius famously declares that Gelimer let an easy victory slip through his fingers when, instead of pushing his advantage and attacking Belisarios, he halted in order to mourn his slain brother.

(slide 18)

The narrative then shifts back to Belisarios, who remains ignorant of all of which had transpired above. Providing balance to the narrative, Procopius shows that the Romans fell prey to their fears, and barely escaped being routed by the Vandals who had taken the high ground.

(slide 19)

Here Belisarios saves the day once again, stepping in during the midst of their retreat, and by appealing to their honour quashes their fear and thus restores their courage.

(slide 19)

Fortune favours the brave, instead of scurrying away to fight another day (as Gelimer frequently does), Belisarius charges the Vandals raising up a large cloud of drifting dust that gave the impression of a much larger Roman force. The Vandals who believed the fighting had finished, had dismounted and were inspecting the battlefield while Gelimer arranged his brother’s funeral rites. The Vandals wilted under the force of the Romans charge, and fled.
.
Procopius reported, “Now the Vandals were in flight, not to Carthage nor to Byzacium, whence they had come, but to the plain of Boulla and the road leading into Numidia.”

Book III closes with Gelimer’s other brother Tzazo upon learning in Sardinia of the Vandals defeat, hurrying back the entire Vandal fleet of 120 ships. Strangely not attacking the Byzantines in Carthage, a decision that Procopius fails to explain adequately Tzazo abandons the ships and marches overland with his army to join up with Gelimer on the plains of Bulla.

, let us close for today by jumping ahead to the conclusion of the battle of Tricamerum (15 December 533) covered in the opening of the fourth book of Wars, where after Tzazo’s death in battle, Gelimer famously fled when Belisarios attacked his line:

Gelimer realizing that Belisarius came suddenly towards him with his infantry and the rest of his army, neither saying nor ordering anything, Gelimer leapt upon his horse and fled onto the road to Numidia. And his kinsmen and a few of his servants followed him, shell-shocked (καταπεπληγμένοι ), keeping silent about what had happened.

Conclusion

It is surely no coincidence that in the set-speech Gelimer gives just before this battle, he appeals to his men by warning “that if they choose to be cowards” they will lose, not only their lands, but their wives to the Romans. As Peter Van Nuffelen comments in a forthcoming paper this is Gelimer’s

last speech and, virtually, his last spoken words in the Wars.[10] Indeed, the absence of their leader, and hence of orders, leads to the utter defeat of the Vandals, whereupon Gelimer continues his flight to the Papua mountain, among the Berbers.” As long as Gelimer speaks, he can exhort his soldiers and issue orders, he is capable of having an influence on the course of events. Mute, he becomes the mere play thing of others.

I agree with Peter, that Procopius’ attitude towards Gelimer, is therefore less flattering than some suggest. As we saw in the Strategikon, Idealised generals needed to control their men’s fear, be prepared for a defeat and, indeed, be lucky. Gelimer fails on all fronts. He leaves his cities without walls, fails to anticipate the Byzantines’ southern approach, and twice deserts his men when they need him most, and in another contrast to Belisarius, he never even tests his luck when things turn against him, instead he runs. In my reading, Gelimer’s doomed exile on Mt Papua serves as a warning on how fear and the changing circumstances of battle can challenge even the bravest of men. Indeed, fear of watching his young relatives starve to death, in the end, leads to Gelimer’s decision to come down from the mountain and surrender to the Byzantines.

Were the Byzantines better fighters, lucky or blessed by God? All three factors, play a role in Procopius’ complex vision of causation. Yet, it is Belisarios who makes the real difference in 533.

As we have seen campaigns were frequently won and lost by the slimmest of margins. Belisarius’ ability to master the multifaceted aspects of “fear” discussed throughout Book 3, sows the seeds for his later victory. Though far from perfect, by neither fearing too much nor too little, Belisarios serves for Procopios in book III as an idealised andreios general and man.

Of course, as occurs regularly in Wars, through a combination of Belisarios’ recall to Constantinople, bad fortune and men’s propensity to moral depravity, the remainder of Bk IV shows the good times for the Romans in North Africa did not last. Yet, that is a story for another day or perhaps our next speaker.

[1] Ilias

[2] Whately, Battles and Generals, 157.

[3] Proc. Wars 3.2.25-26

[4] Proc. Wars 3.2.1-2. T

[5] Evans, Procopius, 63; Kaldellis, Procopius,179; Wood, ‘Becoming Roman’, 431; Whately, Battles and Generals, 131.

[6] The circumstances behind this campaign are disputed, I follow largely Merrills and Miles’ reconstruction (The Vandals, 121–23).

[7] Procopius, Wars 3.6.11.

[8] Peter Van Nuffellen

[9]For the role of miracles in Vandalic Wars, see Philip Wood, “Being Roman in Procopius’ Vandal Wars,” Byzantion

[10] Gelimer is said to recite Eccl. 1.2 ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity’ (4.9.11).

Justin I: Dumb Uncle or Byzantine Trump?

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Inspired by the work of David Parnell on the complex social webs among Justinian’s generals, I am thinking of examining the social networks among generals during the reigns of Anastasios and Justin I. I have done a great deal of work on Leo I, Zeno, and Justinian… so this new work is only natural. The general Vitalian who rose up against the emperor Anastasios and for a while wielded power during the emperor Justin’s reign before being assassinated by a power-faction led by the future emperor Justinian is of particular interest to me. Indeed, one of the interesting things about these assassinated generals is that when they were purged it did not mean their social networks were culled. This explains why Vitalian’s and the Alan generalissimo Aspar’s (assassinated by Leo I) relatives continued to hold key military command in the Byzantine army long after the regime that killed them had disappeared. To explore these connections and explain the complex power-relationships in early Byzantium I will need to answer a number of questions. But first, I will need to do a great deal of research on the reigns of Anastasios and Justin I. I am familiar with these emperors and their periods, but the old consensus about a dullard Justin manipulated by his nephew Justinian has recently been challenged convincingly…so I am going to start digging into the primary sources again and form my own opinions, which brings me to Justin I.

The long-neglected reign of the Emperor Justin (ruled 517-527) has received some much-needed attention in the past decade. Since the days of mid-sixth century historian Procopius, Justin has mostly been dismissed by historians as a dullard puppet of his ambitious adopted reletive, the future emperor Justinian (ruled 527-565). This paradigm has begun to shift. Far from an illiterate peasant, Justin has been portrayed as another in a long-line of Thracian generals who deftly manipulated contemporary religious and political disputes in the reign of Anastasios to their advantage.[1] Moreover, important articles by Brian Croke and Charles Pazdernik have convincingly shown that Justin’s relationship with Justinian was far more complex and, indeed, rocky than previous scholarship has recognised.[2] Far from being controlled from the beginning by his adopted son, Justin only gradually granted Justinian the power and offices that would lead to him becoming the most powerful Late Antique Byzantine ruler. Indeed, Justinian’s close involvement with the circus factions almost led to his downfall. Certainly, as Croke points out, scholars have relied far too heavily upon Procopius scurrilous Anecdota for their portrait of Justin and the puissance of Justinian in the early 520s. One can only hope that one of these writers takes on the challenge of writing a new monograph on Justin.

So, as I did with Leo I, I will begin to blog on this research..hopefully it will lead to another published article.

[1] Geoffrey Greatrex, “Justin and the Arians” ;“The Early Years of Justin I’s Reign in the Sources,” Electrum 12 (2007): 99-113.

[2] Brian Croke, “Justinian under Justin: Reconfiguring a Reign,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 100. 1 (2007):13-56; Charles Pazdernik, “The Quaestor Proclus,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 55.1 (2015): 221-49.

Headed to the “Zoo

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Ï am headed to give a paper in Kalamazoo next May. Jon Arnold was kind enough to invite me to his session on barbarians and barbarian kingdoms. I am also just finishing up with the final proofs of my forthcoming book The Soldier’s Life, which really look great. The editor has done a fine job, particularly with the images.Once this is finished, a project which lasted 15 years will be done and dusted. This should give me time to start on the Procopius book.

I am also busy with 220 or so students…December can not come soon enough. What follows is an abstract (draft) for my paper, enjoy!

The Fine Line between Fear and Courage in Book III of Procopius’s Vandalic Wars

ABSTRACT

Fear plays a vital if subtle role in the Wars of the mid sixth-century Byzantine historian Procopius. Book III, describing the East Roman’s attempts to wrest North Africa from the Vandals, particularly relies upon the Greek concept of fear as a narrative tool. Several important articles have recently stressed Procopius’ heavy emphasis on the Romans’ foreboding when the Emperor Justinian announced that he was readying to confront the Vandals. According to Wars, Justinian’s magistrates and generals acutely feared a repeat of the disastrous naval campaign in 468 against the Vandals under the Emperor Leo I, which had seen the Roman navy destroyed by Vandal fire-ships and East Rome nearly bankrupted. Only the praetorian prefect John the Cappadocian, however, had the nerve to warn the emperor about the “folly” of his venture. Following John’s advice, Justinian relented and abandoned temporally his plan for war. Only when a visiting bishop advised the emperor that God had visited him in a dream and commanded the bishop to remind Justinian that God would too fight on his side “and make him master of Libya”, was the emperor’s confidence in the invasion restored.

The papers mentioned above, have used this and subsequent episodes in book III of Wars, which accentuate Belisarius and Procopius’ concerns for the prospects of the impending campaign, to suggest that not only was the historian not the general’s apologist, but, indeed, sought to paint Belisarius and the East Roman army in a hostile light. For these revisionists, it offers further proof that Procopius was against Justinian’s reconquest from the beginning. This paper will refute all of these claims. It will suggest that the views discussed above simplify not only the role that fear plays in Procopius and other early Byzantine writers, but misunderstand the complex early Byzantine concept of fear. Far from a negative trait, fear represented an essential aspect of sound generalship and soldiering in Wars. Procopius, in fact, echoes notions found in Aristotle and early Byzantine military manuals that demonstrate that fear when properly controlled represented an essential quality for good generals and manly soldiers to possess. Indeed, in Wars courageous and manly men—both Roman and non-Roman—were often those who followed Aristotle’s famous adage that andreios men feared neither too much nor too little.

Climate, Plague, and the End of the Middle Ages

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Okay, that title sounds a bit dramatic. At the moment I am teaching the medieval and early Modern World. Since it is outside of my specialty I am writing a short introduction to each lecture. I hate reading things out in lecture, but I am using this as a tool. I have not edited this too much or used any citations.

Introduction to Lecture 2

The fourteenth century was a watershed period in European and Medieval History. Although it is difficult to draw a sharp line between the Medieval and the early Modern worlds, events in the 1300s would play a key part in this transition. Though few would have guessed it in 1300, the coming century would witness disasters and challenges that many contemporaries would compare with the Biblical Days of Noah and the flood. In fact, in the aftermath of multiple famines and waves of devastating plague that culled perhaps half of Europe’s population, devout medieval people cannot be blamed for believing that the end of days foretold in the New Testament was at hand.

In large part to famine and disease, Europe’s 300 years of dramatic demographic growth from 1000-1300 came not only to a screeching halt, but careened into a tailspin that would not see the population return to its previous levels until, at least, the 17^th century.

As we can see by this slide (5), the population between Sicily and Scandinavia and Russia and Ireland had increased significantly from around 40 million in the eleventh century to around 75 million in the fourteenth century. This population growth was matched by an emergent and increasingly confident Europe on the world stage. Next to China, the globe’s economic heartland in this period centred on the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. Despite rapid gains, in comparison to the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate, Europe remained an economic and cultural backwater. The magnificent Christian-Byzantine city of Constantinople and the Muslim Caliphate’s capital in Baghdad, were at least ten-times larger and far more monetarily and culturally richer than the pride of Europe…Paris. Despite this economic and demographic disparity, a deft blend of religious conviction teetering on fanaticism and martial capabilities and military innovations acquired warring amongst themselves, had allowed the Europeans to create a powerful war-machine that took a largely divided Muslim world by surprise. This led to a relatively united Western Christendom under the banner of the Pope in Rome recapturing Jerusalem in 1099 after nearly 500 years of Muslim rule. Though increasingly bickering amongst themselves, the Western Crusaders had managed in a few short years to carve out a series of kingdoms in the Biblical— and more recently Muslim and Byzantine—heartlands in the Levant. Though subsequent crusades would never match the success of the first, the crusader’s triumphs, though ephemeral have had long-lasting impacts that continue to resonate.

Slide 7

More lasting were the Christians gradual absorption of Muslim Spain. Though largely a local movement, outside crusaders had played a role in the successful Christian Reconquista that culminated with the unification of the formerly independent Christian Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon in 1469 and the defeat of the Emirate of Granada in 1492.

Slide 8

We know some of the reasons behind the sharp rise in population and, as a result, Western Christendom’s wealth and power. Advancements in agricultural techniques, technology, urbanisation, wealth through the growth of medieval trade and commerce, and a warmer climate all contributed to expansion.

In England, the population increased over these three centuries from about 2 to 5 million

In France, from 6 to 14 million

In Germany, the estimates are from 4 to 11 million

By modern standards, Europe in 1300 was not overpopulated at all. But it was fully populated in relation to the existing technology and patterns of soil exploitation. That is, there were more people than the soil could care for – over-stretched resources. Like medieval Donald Trumps, one finds contemporary authors continually complaining about over-population…..those damn Frisians and Venetians they are eating all of our grain!

Indeed, population increased rapidly in rural areas especially, and the subsequent overpopulation in the countryside generated a steady stream of migration from these rural areas to the emerging cities that had begun sprouting up since the new millennium. In the twelfth-century half of most city’s or town’s population came from somewhere else.

Slide 9

Though filthy, crowded, fire-prone and dangerous, these urban areas offered an escape from the power of the local lord and church…and for some a chance to find a craft or skill that could lead to service in one the many guilds that was changing the social and economic structure of northern and southern Europe in the High Middle Ages. Indeed, most major towns had severed feudal obligations to secular and ecclesiastical lords alike. In these urban areas techniques had improved to create taller buildings…though mostly windowless and cramped these residences contained fewer people than the typical filled to the brim rural housing of the age. Moreover, from the 11^th century larger settlements had taken the first steps to improve fire safety and sanitation. London established public latrines by 1100. After 1212, London required that roofs be made of tile rather than highly flammable thatch and straw. Despite these advances, fertility rates remained much lower in these urban areas than the countryside.

Slide. 10

The city in the High Middle Age was like a castle on a grander scale. As we can see in this slide of medieval Genoa most urban areas in Western Europe were highly fortified. Particularly in the Italian city-states, wealthier families constructed great towers which dominated the skyline. Like castles in the country side, these medieval skyscrapers both protected the urban elites interests and advertised their wealth and position in hierarchal local society. As John Cots posits, while beautiful to look at, these towers “testify to the relative weakness of public authority in some urban areas” in Western Europe in the High Middle Ages.

These growing populations in the cities and country-side in Western Christendom of course needed to be fed. By the dawn of the fourteenth century, technological advance, however, often failed to keep pace with increasing demands for food. In an attempt to grow more food, fields were frequently over-exploited and yields fell. Consequently, the price of grain in the first half of the 14^th century skyrocketed. As we see in Hatcher’s book, this caused a real problem for the majority of the population who was dirt poor. Moreover, for those new migrants to the towns and cities things could be even worse, since most produced no food of their own, so were particularly vulnerable to shortages and famine.

As we can see in this slide, Western Europe’s population declined sharply after 1300. Famine in the early decades. contributed perhaps to a 10% decline, whilst as we discussed above, in the middle of the century, plague culled a further 30 to 50%.

Slide 11

An important factor to consider here is the climate. As we can see here, the years from 1000 to 1250 had been unusually warm. Indeed, grapes are reported being grown in Southern England.

Agriculture is always subject to climatic conditions, and a gradual change in the environment directly influenced levels of agrarian production. Even small drops of temperature can lead to shorter growing seasons and thus smaller yields. Of course, climatic condition occurred only gradually, as we recognise today with the modern issue of Global Warming. But one thing is for sure: The climate played a major part in the mischief 70 or 80 years before the Black Death.

Slide 12

Climatologists have described the period from the early 14th to the late 19th centuries, as the Little Ice Age. According to recent research, volcanic eruptions just before the year 1300 triggered the expansion of Arctic sea ice, setting off a chain reaction that lowered temperatures worldwide. Europe bore the brunt of its ill effects, experiencing harsh and fickle weather for several centuries.

Intense cold led to advances of polar and Alpine glaciers; high rainfall caused a rise in the Caspian Sea. Wheat, vine, and cereals were crippled and virtually extinguished in places like Iceland, England, and Denmark. Greenland, which had been settled by the Norsemen in the late tenth century had to be abandoned by the 15^th. This colder and wetter weather led to a number of disastrous harvests, particularly in England, where famine was reported in 1272, 1277, 1283, 1292, and 1311.

But the great calamity struck between 1315-1317, when a great famine struck Western Europe. In 1316, when the harvest seriously failed, and almost every country in Europe lost the whole of their harvest

After a reported 150 days of straight rain, followed by draught, we can understand why this might have happened. Just as many today live pay check to pay check. In the fourteenth century people lived harvest to harvest…..there were no tinned foods or Woolworths!

Consequently, in the winter, many people died of starvation and from diseases commonly afflicting a starving population. These conditions would have serious consequences for the generation that grew up in the shadow of famine. In fact, as we will discuss in greater detail in a future lecture, some modern scientists conclude that this frailty may help to explain, in part, the plagues’ devastating effect on an already weakened population.

Let us now look at how the people we find in Hatcher’s book survived in this period.

A Cry Against Anti Intellectualism.

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viceandvirtueblog

Toffs and Toughs - The photo that illustrates the class divide in pre-war Britain, 1937 July 9th, 1937 ‘Toffs and Toughs’ Harrow School Boys beside local working class (credit: Rare Historical Photos)

I live in a house divided. But that house is an entire incredulous country. Outside of London there are no hordes of rampaging leavers, or glorified celebration parties. Instead there is only fear, quiet terror and disbelief – on all sides. Those who we think should be celebrating instead woke to the news that the pound had dropped lower than in living memory, that Scotland seeks a second referendum which will see it leave the United Kingdom, and that the promise to end freedom of movement and immigration was a lie. We live in a country of ruins, shattered by an elite political class that sought to undermine and stigmatise education, encourage division, and vilify external forces for internal problems. It was a simple game of smoke and mirrors, a magic trick carried…

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Love and Sex in the High Middle Ages

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In, Ennobling Love: In Search of a New Sensibility, C. Stephen Jaeger famously explores the gradual transformation of the concept of love in Western Europe in the High Middle Ages. Jaeger argues that, from the early to the High Middle Ages, the Western European aristocracy had developed two distinct forms of love. The first form, “Ciceronian” or old love, was based on Greco-Roman ideals that were adapted by the early medieval courts. This love was based on the nobility of a person’s mind and soul. So although the language may seem sexual to the modern observer, this shared love was chaste and a reflection of both parties’ superior virtue. The individuals were not in love with the other’s physical beauty, but with their inner worth, which made these relationships predominantly non-sexual.

To express this feeling of mutual excellence, this form of love needed to be a public affair, which perhaps explains the need by late antique and medieval men to record these exchanges. Such bonds between men had always been prevalent in warrior societies, where comradeship was vital for both the individual’s and the society’s survival. Jaeger observes a new pattern of courtly love emerging in the twelfth century, that of “Ovidian” or “new love”. He argues that this development reflected the increased inclusion of women in society and the proliferation, in learned society, of the sensuous poems of the Roman poet Ovid and the racy new literature of courtly love. This form of love differed greatly from its chaste Ciceronian counterpart, in that it involved women, and was sexual in nature. In this form of love the woman became the reward for the man’s moral improvement. Unlike the logical relationships between males, Ovidian love was highly passionate, and at times illogical. Love was portrayed as part of the natural world and came to be seen as beyond the control of human beings.

In a world where, following Biblical precedent, sexuality was viewed with suspicion, courtly literature sought to reconcile this physical love with ennobling love. For historians of sexuality, Jaeger presents the challenge of whether the study of “homosexuality” is even valid. He argues that modern scholars are too influenced by Freudian thinking and fail to comprehend the different mindset and aims of the medieval individual. So where John Boswell famously read in Anselm’s intense and emotive letters to his fellow monks and male students a sexual subtext, Jaeger, to my mind rightly, sees a typically chaste Ciceronian “love-affair” among like-minded men. Yet, as one observes in the letters of Abelard and Heloise, similarly emotive language may also be used by our medieval writers to describe both physical and spiritual love. Surely then, the language of Ciceronian love could be used to mask more physical, and by the twelfth century standards, more illicitly sexual relationships between men.

Somewhat ironically in an age where an increasingly centralised and reformed Catholic Church sought to monitor men and women’s relationships, there came to be a greater acceptance of the value of passionate love and, indeed, the sexual act. As Sally Vaughn has recently argued, the clergy played a part in this change. She shows that Anselm’s friendships extended to woman. Here, Anselm was more revolutionary. Vaughn suggests that the increasing adulation in the twelfth century of the Virgin Mary’s role as the theotokos had a somewhat unintended consequence. To borrow Vaughn’ words, “the union of God and Mary into one flesh, an analogy to the biblical metaphor for sexual union”, helped to redeem humanity from original sin. “In the recreation of the universe”, Vaughn continues, “perhaps sexual love was also transformed, because human beings sharing God’s nature, were freed from sin.”[1]

[1] Sally Vaughn, “Saint Anselm and His Students Writing About Love: A Theological Foundation for the Rise of Romantic Love in Europe,” Journal of Sexuality 19.1 (2010): 54-73.

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mikeaztec

Musings on current events and some of my recent works on medieval and late Roman history

The Arab Siege of Constantinople, 717-18

Lingering Martial Romanitas in Byzantium

Finding Mr or Mrs Right: Marriage Alliances in the Age of Theodora

Review of Graphic Signs of Identity, Faith, and Power in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

Review of Motions of Late Antiquity: Essays on Religion, Politics, and Society in Honour of Peter Brown

Fine Line Between Fear in Courage in Book III of Procopius’s Vandalic Wars

Justin I: Dumb Uncle or Byzantine Trump?

[2] Brian Croke, “Justinian under Justin: Reconfiguring a Reign,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 100. 1 (2007):13-56; Charles Pazdernik, “The Quaestor Proclus,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 55.1 (2015): 221-49.

Headed to the “Zoo

Climate, Plague, and the End of the Middle Ages

A Cry Against Anti Intellectualism.

Love and Sex in the High Middle Ages