History - The Roman Empire & Byzantium

Rome and Romania, 27 BC-1453 AD
ROME AND ROMANIA, 27 BC-1453 AD

Emperors of the Roman and the so-called Byzantine Empires; Princes, Kings, and Tsars of Armenia, Numidia, Judaea, Georgia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Wallachia, & Moldavia; Sultns of Rm and Beys of Aydin
Rome casts a long shadow. I am writing in the Latin alphabet. I am using the Roman calendar, with its names of the months. I use Roman names for the planets in the sky. Sentences I write contain borrowed Latin words with some frequency [e.g. sententia, continre, Latinus, frequentia, for example -- exempli gratia]. Nietzsche said, "The Romans were the strongest and most noble people who ever lived." But this is just the problem. What Nietzsche admired was unapologetic power, conquest, and domination. This no longer seems so admirable, and the Empire founded by Julius Caesar and Augustus, as a form of government, does not look like an advance in the course of human progress. Even to Machiavelli, the despotism of Caesar was a grave retrogression in comparison to the Roman Republic. While a thoughtful Emperor, like Marcus Aurelius, expressed ideals adopted from Stoic cosmopolitanism, the unity and universality of Rome soon expressed itself as the unity and universality of a state religion, Christianity, whose intrinsic exclusivism and intolerance became characteristic of the Middle Ages. This is also no longer to be regarded as admirable. Nevertheless, the very success of Rome makes us, like it or not, her heirs, in countless matters great and small. Indeed, the Romans were rather more successful than is usually thought. The corpus of Roman law, let alone Greek literature, was not preserved at Rome, but at Constantinople, Roma Nova. What most people would probably regard as an obscure footnote to Mediaeval history, the Byzantine Empire, was in fact still the Roman Empire, known to Western Europeans, "Latins" or "Franks" at the time, as Romania, already the name of the Empire in Late Antiquity. The Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204, and then refugees from the fall of the City to the Ottomans in 1453, rather crudely, but effectively, brought the heritage of the Roman East back into the hitherto poorer Mediaeval civilization of the West. This is getting to be a large text file, but it may take an especially long time to load because of all the maps and genealogical charts, which are large graphic files. There is also an audio file, if anyone wants music. Despite that overall size, the file has not been broken up, so as to preserve and emphasize the continuity of the history of Rome and Romania from Augustus all the way to Constantine XI. It is a long story, one which took Gibbon three large volumes, and he only began with the Antonines.
http://www.friesian.com/romania.htm (1 of 99)12/22/2003 1:24:26 AM
Animated History of Romania I. First Empire, "Rome," 27 BC-284 H A. "PRINCIPATE," 27 BC-235, 261 years I 1. JULIO-CLAUDIANS I 2. The Bosporan Kingdom I 3. Armenia, 401 BC-428 AD I The Patriarchs of Armenia I 4. Numidia I 5. Judaea I 6. FLAVIANS & ANTONINES I 7. SEVERANS H B. CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY, 235-284, 49 Years I Crisis of the Third Century Chart II. Second Empire, Early "Romania," 284-610 H A. "DOMINATE," 284-379, 95 years I 1. TETRARCHS I Chart of the Tetrarchy I Late Roman Capitals I 2. CONSTANTIANS I The Approaches and Environs of Constantinople I The Theodosian Walls of Constantinople I Cross Section of the Walls I The Patriarchs of Constantinople I 3. VALENTIANS H B. CRISIS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, 379-476, 97 Years I 1. THEODOSIANS I Visigoths I Burgundians I Vandals I Western Provinces of the Notitia Dignitatum, c.400 AD I Eastern Provinces of the Notitia Dignitatum, c.400 AD I The Roman Army, c. 408 AD I 2. LAST WESTERN EMPERORS H C. THE EAST ALONE, 476-518, 42 Years I 1. LEONINES I Ostrogoths
Roman Coinage D. RETURNING TO THE WEST, 518-610, 92 years I 1. JUSTINIANS I Lombards I Provinces at the Death of Justinian, 565 AD I 2. Georgia, 588-1505
I
III. Third Empire, Middle "Romania," Early "Byzantium," 610-1059 H A. THE ADVENT OF ISLAM, 610-802, 192 years I 1. HERACLIANS I The Organization of the Themes and Exarchates, at the Death of Constans II, 668 AD I 2. Armenia, 628-806 AD I 3. SYRIANS (ISAURIANS) I 4. Doges (Dukes) of Venice, 727-1797 H B. REVIVAL AND ASCENDENCY, 802-1059, 257 years I 1. NICEPHORANS I 2. AMORIANS (PHRYGIANS) I 3. Bulgaria before Roman Conquest I Macedonian Bulgaria I 4. MACEDONIANS I 5. Armenia, 806-1064 IV. Fourth Empire, Late "Romania/Byzantium," 1059-1453 H A. THE ADVENT OF THE TURKS, 1059-1185, 126 years I 1. DUCASES I 2. Seljuk Sult.ns of Rm I 3. COMNENI I 4. Lesser Armenia I 5. Kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus, 1099-1489 I County of Edessa I Principality of Antioch I County of Tripoli I Order of the Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem I Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon I Order of the Knights of the Hospital of St. Mary of the Teutons in Jerusalem H B. THE LATIN EMPIRE, 1185-1261, 76 years I 1. ANGELI I 2. Bulgaria, Asens I 3. LATINS
Latin Patriarchs of Constantinople I Kings of Thessalonica I Dukes of Athens I Princes of Achaea I 4. Epirus I 5. Trebizond I 6. LASCARIDS C. THE LAST DAYS, 1261-1453, 192 years I 1. Serbia I 2. Bosnia I 3. Bulgaria, Terters I 4. Begs (Beys) of Aydn I 5. PALAEOLOGI I The Flag of ROMANIA I 6. Romanians
I
V. Fifth Empire, Ottomans, Islamic Byzantium, 1453-1922, 469 years H The Patriarchs of Constantinople H Animated History of Turkiya H The Shihb Amrs of Lebanon, 1697-1842 AD H The House of Muh.ammad 'Al in Egypt, 1805-1953 AD Modern Romania, Ottoman Successor States in the Balkans I 1817, Serbian Autonomy I 1834, after Greek Independence I 1858, after the Crimean War H Romnia, 1611-present I 1875 I Congress of Berlin, 1878 H Montenegro, 1697-1918 I 1908 H Greece, 1821-present I 1912, before the Balkan Wars H Serbia & Yugoslavia, 1817-present I 1913-1914, after the Balkan Wars, & before World War I H Bulgaria, 1879-present I 1925, after World War I H Albania, 1914-present I 1943, Axis Occupation in World War II I 1947, after World War II

H
Macedonia, 1991-present I 1999, Ethnic Cleansing Armenia & Georgia, 1991-present
Discussion of the period covered by this page, with sources on Roman and "Byzantine" history, upon which the actual tables and genealogies are based, may be found in "Decadence, Rome and Romania, the Emperors Who Weren't, and Other Reflections on Roman History." One Roman source not mentioned there is the handy Who Was Who In The Roman World, edited by Diana Bowder [1980, Washington Square Press, Pocket Books, 1984]. That was the first source I ever saw that organized Roman Emperors into logical groups. Other sources are given here at the points where they are used. This page is continued and supplemented by the material in "Successors of Rome: Germania", "Successors of Rome: Francia", "Successors of Rome: The Periphery of Francia", "Successors of Rome: Russia", and "The Ottoman Sultns". Some material on earlier history may be found at "Historical Background to Greek Philosophy" and "Historical Background to Hellenistic Philosophy". The maps are originally those of Tony Belmonte, edited to eliminate references to "Byzantium" and with corrections and additions. Tony's historical atlas (with Tony) disappeared from the Web. It was painstakingly reassembled by Jack Lupic, but then his site has disappeared also. Corrections and additions are based on The Penguin Atlas of Ancient History (Colin McEvedy, 1967), The Penguin Atlas of Medieval History (Colin McEvedy, 1961), The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History (Colin McEvedy, 1992), The Anchor Atlas of World History, Volume I (Hermann Kinder, Werner Hilgemann, Ernest A. Menze, and Harald and Ruth Bukor, 1974), and various prose histories. My graphics programs do not seem to be quite as sophisticated as Tony's, so maps I have modified may not look as professionally done as his originals. Note that Greek words and names are not phonetically transliterated but are actually Latinized in both spelling and morphology. Thus, the name that could be transliterated from Greek as "Doukas," is written "Ducas." The epithet of Basil II, "Bulgaroktonos," "Bulgar Slayer," is rendered "Bulgaroctonus." This is contrary to increasing usage but is, as Warren Threadgold says [A History of the Byzantine State and Society, Stanford University Press, 1997, p. xxi], what the Romans would have done themselves when writing in the Latin alphabet. Since the Latin alphabet is used here, and since the Roman Empire originally used Latin as its universal language, never forgotten in Greek Romania, that is the practice here. Exceptions would be for Greek words that simply have Latin translations. Thus, Greek Rhmaioi, "Romans," corresponds to Latin Romani (not "Rhomaeoe"). A kind of exception to this would be when the Greek word is part of a compound. For instance Tsar Kalojan of Bulgaria was called the "Roman Killer," Rhmaioktonos. This would Latinize as Rhomaeoctonus.
I. FIRST EMPIRE, "ROME," 27 BC-284, 310 years
The "First Empire" is what often would be considered the entire history of the "Roman Empire." It is definitely the end of the Ancient World. If "Rome" means paganism, bizarre Imperial sex crimes, and the Pax Romana, then this would indeed be it. A later Empire that is Christian, more somberly moralistic, and more beset with war, sounds like a different civilization, which it is, and isn't. That the earlier civilization didn't "fall" but merely became transformed is a truth that both academic and popular opinion still hasn't quite come to terms with. If the decadence of pagan religion and despotic emperors was going to be the cause of the "fall" of Rome, then it certainly should have fallen in the Crisis of the Third Century. That it didn't would seem almost like a disappointment to many. But the greatest of the 3rd century Emperors, like Aurelian, don't get popular books, movies, and BBC television epics made about them. They begin to pass into a kind of historical blind spot. The Pax Romana seems real enough in certain places, but there were not many reigns without some major military action. As long as these were remote from Rome, people would have thought of it as peace. Once Aurelian rebuilt the walls around Rome, things had obviously changed.
A. "PRINCIPATE," 27 BC-235, 261 years This is the period that fits everybody's main idea of the "Roman Empire." Caligula and Nero, and Robert Graves's version of Claudius, are objects of Augustus 27 BC-14 AD endless fascination, moralizing, guilty pleasure, and not-so-guilty pleasure. Whatever these emperors were actually like, this approach began with the Romans themselves, with Suetonius's list of Tiberius I 14-37 Tiberius's sexual perversions, lovingly reproduced in Bob Guccione's movie Caligula (1979, 1991). Whether Tiberius was really guilty of anything of the Caligula 37-41 sort is anyone's guess, but we don't hear much in the way of such accusations Claudius I 41-54 about subsequent Emperors, except for a select few, like Caracalla and Elagabalus. Meanwhile, Augustus had secured the Rhine-Danube frontier, and Invasion of Britain, 43 Claudius conquered most of Britain. Augustus originally wanted an ElbeDanube frontier, but his forces were caught in a catastrophic ambush and Nero 54-68 destroyed. The Romans gave up on the Elbe permanently. Only Charlemagne, by the conquest of Saxony, would secure what Augustus had wanted. The non-dynastic shadow of the Republic persisted during this period, as Augustus adapted Republican forms to his own concentration of absolute power, and someone Galba 68-69 like Claudius could still dream of restoring the Republic. The year 69 pretty Otho 69 much ended these dreams, since the first free-for-all scramble for the throne revealed that the army, and only the army, would determine who would be Vitellius 69 Emperor. Strangely enough, despite the occasional anarchy, this would be a source of strength for the Empire, since it always did the best with successful soldiers at its head. Unsuccessful soldiers faced the most merciless reality check (whether killed by the enemy or by their own troops); but purely civilian Emperors, like Honorius, could endure one disaster after another without their rule necessarily being endangered. 1. JULIO-CLAUDIANS The family of the Julio-Claudians seems like one of the most complicated in history. This chart eliminates
many people in the family to focus on the descent and relation of the Emperors. Caligula and Nero are descendants of Augustus, through his daughter Julia (from his first marriage); but Claudius and Nero are also descendants of Mark Antony, who of course committed suicide, shortly before Cleopatra, rather than be captured after his defeat by Augustus. The use of crowns to indicate the emperors is at this point anachronistic, but it is convenient. The crown for Christian Roman Emperors, which of course will not occur until Constantine, is shown with a nimbus, like deified earlier Emperors, because they are always portrayed with halos, like Saints, and are said to be the "Equal of the Apostles." 3. KINGS OF ARMENIA Orontids Orontes/Ervand I Codomannus/ Darius III Like the Bosporan Kingdom, the history of Armenia stretches from the Golden Age of Greece through the Hellenistic Period to Satrap, 401-344 protracted status as a Roman, and Persian, client. The differences are that (1) Armenia was not a Greek colony but the Satrap, 344-336 realm of an indigenous people of Anatolia, like the Phrygians and Cappadocians, and (2) Armenia outlived all the Greek King of Persia, colonies, all the other ancient kingdoms of Anatolia, and even 336-330 Rome itself. Armenia was subject to a long military and diplomatic tug-or-war between Rome and Parthia, then Rome 336-331 and Persia, and finally Rome and Islm. Even today the Armenian language reflects strong Persian influence -- which
Orontes/Ervand II
King, 331-c.325 Mithranes Orontes III Samus Arsames Xerxes Orontes IV c.325-c.317 c.317-c.260 c.260 c.260-c.230 c.230-c.212 c.212-c.200 Artaxiads Artaxias/Arashes Tigranes I Artavasdes/Artavasd I Tigranes/Tigran II the Great c.189-c.164 ? 159-95 95-55
has made it difficult to determine the affinities of Armenian with other Indo-European languages. Deep Roman influence is evident in the fact that Armenia converted to Christianity in 301 AD, more than a decade before Christianity had any official toleration or status in Romania itself. Armenia has thus traditionally been regarded as the first officially Christian country, though, with uncertainties in dating, Ethiopia may be able to challenge this. The conversion of Armenia, under Tiridates III, the Great, was effected by St. Gregory the Illuminator (or Enlightener), a Roman and Christian raised Armenian, who then became Armenian Patriarch (301-325, d.332) -- undoubtedly the first Armenian Patriarch, although later the line was reckoned back to the Apostles, as with most Patriarchates. The traditional date of the conversion of Armenia, however, has now been questioned. A.E. Redgate, in The Armenians [Basil Blackwell, 1998, 2000, pp.116-117], says that it was more like c.314, after Constantine's own conversion. Backdating the event was a later fabrication, during the period of Persian rule, in order to assert that Armenian Christianity was independent of Roman, and that Chistianity therefore did not represent Roman sympathies and disloyality to the Sassanids. Redgate thinks that the conversion of Tiridates III (or IV) was precisely to display loyalty to Rome. If Redgate is right, then Ethiopia probably wins the priority debate. The kingdom after the end of this period indeed passed for a time under Persian control, then Persian rule, Roman reconquest by Heraclius, and finally the Islmic conquest. Later independence in the Middle Ages included the Kingdom of the Bagratids and the outlying Kingdom of Lesser Armenia in the Taurus Mountains. The Seljuk conquest ushered in many centuries of Turkish rule, and of course the history of Armenia in the 20th century is scarred by the genocide, less Islmic than nationalistic, by the Ottoman Turks. During all this the Armenian Church was always independent -- often regarded as schismatic by the Roman Catholicism of both Constantinople and the Popes. Today the Armenian Catholicos, in a newly independent Republic of Armenia, has been able to travel and freely reestablish contact with Armenian churches around the world. After the advent of Persian rule, St. Mesrop (Mashtots, 360-440
Roman influence, 69 Artavasdes II Artaxes Tigranes III Tigranes IV Artavasdes II Ariobarzanes Artavasdes III Tigranes & Erato Vonones Artaxias/Artashes I Arsaces/Arshak I 55-33 34-20 20-c.8 c.8 BC-1 AD 1-c.2 c.2-c.4 c.4-c.6 ? 11-16 18-c.34 c.34-36
Mithridates [Radamistus]
36-51 c.52-c.54 Arsacids
Tiridates/Trdat I Tigranes VI of Cappadocia Axidares Parthamasiris
51-60, 63-100 60-62 c.110 113-114
AD) invented an appropriate alphabet for Armenian (and another one for Georgian) at the beginning of the 5th century -- in fact possibly during the reign of Sassanid King Varahran V (421-439 AD). The alphabet is largely based on the Greek alphabet, but Mesrop had to invent some letters for sounds that didn't exist in the Greek alphabet. At least one of these was later used for the Cyrillic alphabet, which was invented by Saints Cyril and Methodius (d.885) to help convert the Slavs. An Armenian taxidriver in Los Angeles recently told a friend of mine that the Armenian alphabet was derived from the Ethiopian alphabet (actually, syllabary). This very astonishing notion would involve both dismissal of the historical record for Armenia and remarkable abnegation of national claims that usually only expand, not retreat -- as some Ethiopians say that their alphabet was invented autochthonously rather than derived from Old South Arabian, as it was. I am very curious how this notion got started and if Armenians who pass it on even know about St. Mesrop. This list is based on E.J. Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World [Cornell Univesity Press, 1968-1982, pp. 135-136], and M. Chahin, The Kingdom of Armenia [Dorset Press, New York, 1987, 1991, pp. 211-257]. Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies displays several different names, sequences, and dates, but I have not tried to compare or reconcile them. My knowledge of Armenian is originally from my textbook at UCLA, Modern Armenian by Hagop Andonian (Armenian General Benevolent Union of America, New York, 1966). Many recent Armenian immigrants to the United States, however, coming from the former Soviet Armenia, speak a different dialect (Eastern Armenian) from what earlier immigrants, from Turkey, spoke (Western Armenian). The Patriarchs of Armenia Armenia Continued 4. KINGS OF NUMIDIA
Roman annexation, 114-117 Sanatruces Vologases/Valarsh I Pacorus Sohaemus Valarsh II Tiridates II/III/ Khosrov I Tiridates III/IV, the Great c.115 117-c.142 c.160-163 c.163-c.175 c.215 217-252 287-330
Christianity adopted, 301 Khosrov II/Kotak, the Young Tigranes V/Tiran 331-338 338-350
Kidnapped by Shapur II, 350 Arsaces/Arshak II Artashes III 350-367 d.428
No less that four foreign
cultures have been planted Masinissa c.215-149 into North Africa over the centuries. The Kingdom of Gulussa & 149-c.145 Numidia was originally Mastanabal promoted by Rome as an ally against the Carthaginians. In the Second Punic War (218-201), Masinissa went from fighting effectively for Micipsa 149-118 Carthage to an alliance with Rome. His cavalry is largely what enabled Scipio Africanus to defeat Hannibal at Zama in 202. He was then Adherbal & 118-116 supported by the Romans in eliminating his Numidian rivals. However, Hiempsal I when he wanted to marry the wife of the great Numidian king Syphax, the Jugurtha 118-105 Cathaginian princess Sophonisba, the Romans demanded that she be handed over to them. Masinissa enabled her to poison herself instead. War with Romans, Rome supported Masinissa the rest of his life. He died shortly before 112-106 Carthage itself was exterminated in 146. Numidian allies thus enabled Rome to overthrow the first foreign culture in North Africa, the Gauda 105-? Phoenician (or "Punic" to the Romans). The Numidians then, of course, discovered what being an "ally" of Rome really meant, and war resulted Hiempsal II c.88-c.50 as later Kings tried to preserve their independence -- especially the War of Jugurtha (112-105). Like the native kingdoms of Anatolia, Numidia was Juba I c.50-46 soon converted into a Roman province, opening the way for the introduction of a Latinate culture. If no other events had intervened, North Juba II c.30 BC-c.22 AD Africa today would probably boast its own Romance language, like c.22 AD-40 Spanish or French. This, however, was not to be. The Vandals interrupted Ptolemy Roman rule, but not long enough to make any lasting difference, if Islam Roman Province had not soon arrived. When it did, this became the most durably planted foreign culture, with a large colonial element, as the Fatimid Caliphs of Egypt later directed an invasion of ethnic Arab tribes -- in revenge for North African defection from the Fatimids, and from the Shi'ite cause. The last culture planted was that of France, beginning with the occupation of Algeria in 1830. Eventually, something like 30% of the population of Algeria was French colonials, who began to fight as the era of decolonization threatened their position. This brought about the fall of the French Fourth Republic in 1958. Interestingly, the two greatest French Existentialist writers and philosophers were on opposite sides of the issue. Jean Paul Sartre had become a dogmatic Marxist who demanded Algerian independence at any cost, while Albert Camus, whose most famous book, The Stranger, is set in Algeria, could not so easily dismiss the poor French farmers who had lived in Algeria for nearly a century -- Camus also suspected that Sartre's doctrinaire leftism concealed a bit of collaboration with the Germans in World War II. The return of Charles de Gaulle to power in 1958 ushered in harsh medicine about Algeria. De Gaulle decided that France should cut her losses, and the colony was abruptly granted independence in 1962. This began a bitter exodus of the French colonials and the nauseating torture and massacre of all those Algerians who were associated with the colonial regime. The cycle of terrorism continues even today, as leftist ideology has collapsed into an unhappy civil conflict between military rule and Islamic fundamentalism, and frightened Algerians have increasingly fled....to France. Persian Control, 364-428; Persian Rule, 428-633 5. LEADERS & KINGS OF JUDAEA
The success of the great struggle of the Maccabees to free the
Hasmoneans Judas Maccabaeus 167-161
Jerusalem Occupied, 164 Jonathan Simon John Hyrcanus I Aristobulus Alexander Jannaeus Salome Alexandra Aristobulus II 161-143 142-135 135-105 104-103 103-76 76-67 67-63
Jews from the Seleucid Kings is still commemorated in the holiday of Hanukkah, based on an incident when the Temple was reconsecrated after the liberation of Jerusalem. Little oil was available for the Temple lamps, but what there was burned miraculously for eight days. The burning of candals for Hanukkah coincides, however, with similar fire rituals of many people at the darkest time of the year, in December, and Hanukkah has also taken on the gift-giving attributes of Christmas -- exemplifying the adapation of religious rituals to several purposes. Explanations of Hanukkah often awkwardly refer to the "Syrians" instead of to the Seleucid Greeks -- but it would certainly seem more politic today to risk offending the Greeks than to have the modern Syrians, who had nothing to do with the Seleucids, feel accused of ancient tyranny. Modern Israel and Syria have enough recent issues to deal with. The hard won independence of Judaea fell within a century to Rome, which for a time, as elsewhere, tolerated a fiction of local rule -- the Herodian dynasty owed its power entirely to Roman favor. This did not mollify the Messianic hotheads, who inevitably sparked a rebellion that led to the final destruction of the Temple, the end, in a sense, of ancient Judaism, massacres and mass suicides, as at Masada, and the increasing Diaspora of Jews into the Roman world. Out of this also came the story of a peaceful Messiah, who had been executed and resurrected, whose cult eventually overwhelmed Rome itself, transforming Hellenistic Romanism into a culture of both Athens and Jerusalem. Jews themselves derived little enough benefit from this transformation, since Pauline Christianity had repudiated the ritual requirements of the Law and the new religion became increasingly estranged from the old. Once the new religion became the State Religion of Rome, the rigor with which Judaism had rejected the old gods now became public policy, to their own disability. Christianity never had the provision found in Islam, however grudging, for the toleration, within limits, of kindred religionists. The fate of Jews in Christendom thus became a matter of local preference, though no less an authority than St. Augustine said that Jews should be tolerated so that the Biblical prophecies of the Coming of Christ would be preserved by a disinterested, or even hostile, source. Augustine, interestingly, did not doubt that Jews could be trusted to faithfully preserve the Hebrew text of the Bible -- as they did.
Pompey captures Jerusalem, 63 Hyrcanus II Antigonus 63-40 40-37 Herodians Herod I the Great Archelaus Herod II Antipas Philip Herod Agrippa I Agrippa II King, 37-4 BC Ethnarch, 4 BC-6 AD Tetrarch, 4 BC-39 AD Tetrarch, 4 BC-37 AD King, 37-44 King, 50/53-100?
Jewish Revolt & War, 66-73: Destruction of Jerusalem, 70 AD; Fall of Masada, 73; Revolt of Bar Kokhba, 132-135 The genealogy of the Hasmonaeans is from The Complete World of The Dead Sea Scrolls (Philip R. Davies, George J. Brooke, & Phillip R. Callaway, Thames & Hudson Ltd., 2002, p.42). The incestuous marriages of the children and grandchildren of Herod the Great, perhaps typical of a Hellenistic dynasty, like the Ptolemies, were very hard to understand. The chart in my edition of Josephus (The Jewish War, Penguin Classics, 1960, p.410) did not make things very clear, but then my colleague Don Smith helped straighten things out for me. There seems to be some question about the parentage of Herodias and Agrippa I -- with Davies, Brooke, & Callaway going for Aristobulus. Aristobulus and his brother Alexander, descendants of the Hasmonaeans through their mother, were both excecuted by Herod. Since Mediaeval Jews shared in the continuing trade and commercial culture of the Middle East, and were often its only representatives in impoverished and ruralized Latin Europe, they became fatefully associated in European eyes with the commercial and financial practices that Europeans at once needed, wanted, misunderstood, and resented. A similar problem
later occurred all over again in Eastern Europe, where the Kings of Poland were eager to bring in a more sophisticated population, unwelcome in Western Europe, to develop the country and strengthen the throne. Such resentments in time found theoretical expression in Marx's view that the Jews embodied the archetype of grasping and exploitive capitalism. This made them class enemies, but that was soon enough converted into race enemies when Marxism mutated into Fascism and Naziism. Jews who thought they had escaped the class and race animus in the Soviet Union soon came to be suspected, purged, and, increasingly, murdered by Stalin, while Hitler, of course, decided to kill them all. This helped promote the idea, not surprisingly, that all Jews should return to Palestine and found a Jewish State, which is what happened. After 2000 years, however, the Zionists found that they didn't have a lot in common with the modern Arabic speaking population of the place they returned to -- rather than learn Arabic, they even decided to revive Hebrew, which was already dying out as a spoken language in the days of the Hasmoneans, and which some Jews refused to speak as being a sacred language (they still speak Yiddish). After fifty years, this conflict between Israel and Arab Palestinians has still not been resolved. By some estimates, e.g. Paul Johnson in his A History of the Jews [HarperPerennial, 1988], Jews constituted as much as 10% of the population of the Roman Empire. I am not familiar with the basis of this estimate, but I am familiar with the difficulty of estimating Roman population at all. I find so high a figure inherently improbable. Judaea, although the "land of milk and honey" in the Bible, is a pretty barren place. This is not going to support a large population, especially on the basis of ancient agriculture. That there should be as many Jews there as, for instance, Egyptians is impossible. Of course, a large part of the estimate is based on the Diaspora population. Even in the time of the Ptolemies, Alexandria already had a very large Jewish population. But that is a key point: the Diaspora population is mostly going to be urban; but the urban population of the Roman Empire is unlikely to have been more than 20% of the whole. Even today, 85% of the population of Tanzania, whose growth was ruined by the socialism of its post-independence government, is still in agriculture. If the population of the Empire was as much as 20% urban, and Jews were 10% of the population, then Jews would have to constitute nearly half of the population of every city, especially including Rome itself (which may have had a population of over a million people at one point -- it could only be fed by surplus grain from North Africa and Egypt). That is nothing like the impression we get from the records, where so large a group in Rome would be felt on a constant basis. So this "10%" seems like a gravely inflated figure, though we may never have a really accurate one. When Jerusalem fell to Titus, the Temple and most of the city were demolished. The furniture and sacred vessels of the Temple, including, Josephus says, the red curtains of the Inner Sanctuary, were carried off to Rome -- portrayed on the Arch of Titus (through which mediaeval Jews refused to walk). They remained
there until 455, when the Vandals sacked the city and removed their loot to Carthage. When Belisarius overthrew the Vandals for Justinian in 533 and found the items from the Temple in Carthage, they were sent back to Constantinople. There they disappear from history. There is no reason not to think that they were safely kept, along with all the rest of the Classical heritage, at Constantinople, at least until the looting of the city by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. At that point many treasures were carried off, largely to Venice. There is no mention, however, except for the fabulous stories about the Templars, of anything, generally or specifically, from the Temple in Jerusalem being found by the Crusaders, and nothing of the sort has ever subsequently been noticed kept at Venice or elsewhere. The great Menrh of the Temple, described in detail by Josephus and shown on the Arch, is certainly not something to be easily overlooked. We are thus left with a considerable mystery, and it is a little surprising that there are not, at least, legends about the fate of the Temple items. Since it has previously been noted that the Ark of the Covenant, despite Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), was not carried off to Tanis, one might wonder what subsequently happened to it. Although Josephus speaks of Titus taking away "the Law," he describes nothing like the Ark. Later, Mediaeval sources (e.g. Mirabilia Urbis Romae, c.1143, The Marvels of Rome, Italica Press, New York, 1986, p.29) speak of the Ark having been in Rome, but this was long, long after the fact. It must not be forgotten, however, that the Temple had once before been destroyed, by Nebuchadnezzar, in 587 BC. It is not clear that anything of the Temple survived, and so the Ark could well have been destroyed then -- or concealed on the Temple Mount, where the Templars supposedly found it.
The maps here begin with Rome at its height under Trajan. The traditional notion that Trajan marched all the way down to the Persian Gulf now seems open to question, but he certainly annexed a good part of Mesopotamia, as well as Armenia and Dacia. These, as it happened, were all the most organized states on the borders of Rome, exceptingly only Kush. The Pax Romana thus was often a matter of war on the frontiers in order to preserve the peace within. But when Hadrian withdrew from some of Trajan's conquests, he was then troubled by the revolt of Bar Kochba in Judaea. 6. FLAVIANS & ANTONINES Vespasian 69-79
Jewish Revolt & War, 66-73: Destruction of Jerusalem, 70 AD; Fall of Masada, 73 Titus 79-81
The Flavians Vespasian and Titus were both great soldiers and, to the Roman historians, virtuous and admirable men. Unfortunately, Titus's brother Domitian was not quite of the same stamp, and then went on to reign longer than his father and brother. He was succeeded by a
Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, 79; Colosseum dedicated, 80 Domitian 81-96
fraternity of soldiers who adopted each other to secure competent and Trajan 97-117 peaceful succession. The "Five Good Emperors" (in Dacia conquered, 101-106; boldface) became the ideal Nabataean Petra annexed, 106; Armenia & Mesopotamia of generations, all the way to Gibbon, for peaceful and annexed, 114; Jewish benevolent government. Revolt, 115-117 Trajan was the first Hadrian 117-138 Emperor born in the provinces (Spain) and Bar Kochba's Revolt briefly, with his in Judaea, 132-135 Mesopotamian campaign, expanded the Empire to its Antoninus Pius 138-161 greatest extent. In the Middle Ages, Trajan had Lucius Verus 161-169 such a powerful reputation for goodness that the story Parthian War, 162-168 began to circulate that God had brought him back to Marcus Aurelius 161-180 life just so he could German War, 168-175 convert to Christianity. Dante even includes that in Commodus 177-192 the Divine Comedy. Antoninus Pius became the non-dynastic only Roman Emperor in 1500 years to be called Pertinax 193 "the Pious," but we really know precious little about Didius Julianus 193 his reign, which is only covered by the poor Niger, in Syria 193-194 Historia Augusta. This Clodius Albinus, may simply illustrate the principle that goodness and peace (the height 193-197 in Britain & Gaul of the "Pax Romana") is boring. The peace ended under Marcus Aurelius, the closest thing to a "philosopher king" until Thomas Jefferson, but also a very competent general, who smashed a major German invasion across the Danube, while consoling himself with Stoicism for the miseries of war, plague, and personal loss. Marcus's only real failure was to leave the Empire to his worthless son, Commodus. Hereditary succession, although eventually stabilized in Constantinople, would prove a dangerous principle at many moments in Roman history. The incompetence and viciousness of Commodus then set off his assassination and the second great free-for-all fight for the throne, in 193. This was not without its comic aspect, when the Praetorian Guard killed the disciplinarian Pertinax and literally put the throne up for sale. The wealthy Didius Julianus made the best bid but had no other ability to secure his rule. He was killed by Septimius Severus, a notably humorless man, who arrived in Rome promptly -- and then also abolished the Guard. Nerva 96-98
Although Hollywood, and Italian cinema, used to turn out one Roman themed movie after another, frequently with religious overtones (called "sword-and-sandals" epics), the genre all but died with a 1964 movie about Commodus, The Fall of the Roman Empire (a tad premature there on the "Fall"). Except for Fellini's strange Satyricon (1970), the pornographic Caligula (1979), and the comic Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979), the next Roman movie would not be released until 2000, with Ridley Scott's big budget and successful Gladiator. This is also, as it happens, about Commodus. The closing implication of Gladiator is diametrically the opposite of the 1964 movie, with the good guys apparently having won and a hopeful future in the offing. Neither movie, of course, gets it quite right. The competition for the throne in 193 was not very edifying, and absolutely none of the players appear in Gladiator, not even Pertinax, the prefect of the city of Rome. On the other hand, the story does not pretend to historical accuracy about the events. Commodus did like to fight gladiators, but he was not killed that way, and certainly not by a wronged general. There is no evidence that Commodus killed his father, or any hint that Marcus considered a non-hereditary succession. Even in the movie it is clear that his provision for such a thing came far too late to be effective. Gladiator is a good movie and a good story, but it is not a serious attempt to present real Roman history. Because of its success, however, one can hope that other events in Roman history, however fictionalized, will have a chance to make it onto the screen. 7. SEVERANS
It took a little time for Septimius to put down all the would-be Emperors in Septimius Severus 193-211 the provinces, but he did so with determination and ferocity. The virtues of nobility reputed to Trajan, of culture to Hadrian, of piety to Antoninus, and Caracalla 198-217 of philosophy to Marcus Aurelius were all missing in Septimius Severus. He also doesn't seem to have considered anything other than hereditary Geta 209-211 succession, despite having a particularly nasty son, Caracalla, as the candidate. His attempt to ballance Carcalla with his brother Geta simply got Roman Citizenship Geta murdered. Another factor, however, was the loyalty inspired in the to all free persons, 212 troops to the family, and Caracalla himself maintained that popularity reasonably well, until his inevitable murder. This set off another brief freeMacrinus 217-218 for-all, until loyalty to the Diadumenian 218 Severan family Elagabalus 218-222 prevailed. The "family," Alexander Severus 222-235 however, turned out to be the entirely matrilineal creation of Severus' sister-inlaw, Julia Maesa, who brought her two grandsons, entirely unrelated to Severus, to the throne. The bizarre Elagabalus (sometimes "Heliogabalus"), styling himself the god of his grandmother's Syrian solar cult, and then the amiable and reasonably effective Alexander thus wrapped up the dynasty. Alexander was killed after the overdue reality check of battle, against the newly aggressive Persians. He was not that bad, but evidently not good enough for his
own troops, who killed him and his mother. Septimius Severus himself was one of the two Roman Emperors (Constantius Chlorus was the other) to die (a natural death) at York (Eboracum) in Britain. A bit of an intellectual revival took place at the court of Septimius Severus. This has been called the "Second Sophistic" and was largely due to the interests of Julia Domna. In a history of the sophists written at the time, by Philostratus, he says that Julia attracted a circle of mathematicians and philosophers. However, this actually meant something more like "astrologers and sophists," and the revival was more of a retrospective on ancient philosophy than a movement that contributed much original or of interest to it. Nevertheless, such an inspiration and preoccupation has been compared to similar concerns in the Renaissance.
B. CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY, 235-284, 49 Years
This map looks like it should be from the Fifth Century. The Goths, not yet divided, are here, but they come in part by boat, which we will not see with them later. The Franks here duplicate the later course of the Vandals, through Gaul, Spain, and North Africa, but without the same effects. Later, the Franks will not be a principal invader but will be the ultimate beneficiary of the invasions. The Alemanni also will be less active later, remaining in Germany and leaving their name as the word for "German" in Romance languages. Rome is weakened by revolt in the West and a Palyrmene takeover in the East. But in this era Roman institutions prove resilient enough to restore the status quo ante
(with troubling strategic withdrawls). But the Germans remain across the Rhine and Danube, growing in numbers and sophistication. One might even say that all this was a dress rehearsal for the later invasions. In the theater, if the dress rehearsal goes poorly, the opening will go well. This is what happened. The chaos that had threatened in some earlier successions Maximinus I Thrax Gordian I Africanus Balbinus & Pupiens Gordian III Philip I the Arab Decius Trebonianus Gallus Aemilianus Valerian I 235-238 238 238 238-244 244-249 249-251 Hostilianus 251-253 253 Valerian II 253-260 Saloninus 260, defeated and captured by the Sassanid Shh Shapur I Postumus, in Gaul Claudius II Gothicus 259-268 268-270 Quintillus 270 255-259 253-255 Volusianus 251 253 Philip II Herennius 247-249 251 SONS, BROTHERS, etc. Gordian II 238 (in 69 and 193) now arrived in 238, when we can say that there were five Emperors in one year. The complexity of the following period can only be appreciated, or even understood, by reviewing the "Crisis of the Third Century" chart. Few Emperors reigned long or died natural deaths. Gordian III's six years would count as lengthy for the period, but his murder would prove all too typical. The musical chairs of murders did not help prepare the Empire for increased activity by the Germans and Persians. Decius and Herennius were killed in battle by the Goths in 251 -- the only Roman Emperors to die in battle (against external enemies) besides Julian (against the Persians, 363), Valens (against the Goths again, 378), Nicephorus I (against the Bulgars, 811), and Constantine XI (with the fall of Constantinople to the Turks, 1453). Valerian's relatively long reign ended with the unparalleled ignominy of being captured by Shapur I -- the only Roman Emperor captured by an enemy until Romanus IV in 1071. His son Gallienus then endured one invasion and disaster after another, with the Empire actually beginning to break up. Despite a short reign (and a natural death), Claudius II began to turn things around by defeating the Goths, commemorated with a column that still stands in Istanbul. His colleague Aurelian then substantially restores the Empire, only to suffer assassination, initiating a new round of revolving Emperors. This finally ended with Diocletian, who picked up reforming the
Gallienus
253-268
Defeat of Goths, 269 Victorianus, in Gaul Tetricus I, in Gaul Zenobia, of Palmyra Aurelian 268-270 270-273 267-272 270-275 Tetricus II 270-273
Vabalanthus 270-273
Withdrawl from Dacia, 271
Tacitus Probus Carus
275-276 276-282
Florianus
276
Empire, militarily, politically, and religiously, where Aurelian had left off.
Numerian 282-283 Carinus
283-284 283-285 Not much in the way of dynasties in this period. Many Emperors, of course, wanted to associate their sons with them to arrange for their succession; but in the violent ends of most Emperors, the sons usually died with them. Gordian III, Gallienus, and Carinus are the principal exceptions, ruling in their own right after the death of fathers or, with Gordian, uncle and grandfather. The invasions and political troubles of the Third Century shook the religious and philosophical certainties upon which Rome had previously thrived. Exotic religious cults, like Mithraism and
Christianity, now began to exert wide appeal; and a profound shift occurred in philosophy. We no longer hear much of Stoics or Epicureans, but whole new perspectives and concerns are ushered in by the mystical Egyptian Plotinus (d.270), who even enjoyed some Imperial patronage under Gordian III and Philip the Arab. He makes the Second Sophistic look superficial indeed. With his return to the epistemology and metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle, Plotinus, as such the founder of Neoplatonism, picks up the mainstream of development of the Western philosophical tradition, which had somewhat detoured in the Hellenistic Period through revivals of
Presocratic doctrine (Heraclitus for the Stoics, Atomism for the Epicureans). Plotinus's student, disciple, and Boswell Porphyry (d.>300), who enjoyed patronage from Aurelian, promoted Neoplatonic principles, wrote an introduction to Aristotle's logical works, the Isagoge, which became an indispensable text in the Middle Ages, and even began organizing the defense of traditional religion in his Against the Christians -- though the Neoplatonic version of traditional religion now looks much more of a piece with Christian sensibilities than with things like the peculiar and archaic practices examined by Frazer in The Golden Bough. The cultural and intellectual sea change of the period, soon followed by Diocletian's reforms, usher in the world of Late Antiquity. Classicists start to become nervous and irritable.
275 AD
II. SECOND EMPIRE, EARLY "ROMANIA," 284-610, Era of Diocletian 1-327, 326 years
The "Second Empire" is a period of transformation whose beginning and end seem worlds apart. Even at the beginning, however, Classicists find themselves becoming uncomfortable, in large part because they are now
rubbing shoulders with Byzantinists, Mediaevalists, and, worse, historians of religion and, gasp, even of the Church. In the Middle Ages, this was regarded as a triumphant period, when the Roman Empire was redeemed and ennobled with its conversion to and transformation by Christianity -- becoming a "Romania" whose name is now not even familiar as the name of the Roman Empire. In Modern thought, this construction tends to be reversed, with the superstition and dogmatism of Christianity dragging the Classical World down into the Dark Ages. At the same time, however, there is still a strong attraction to the idea of blaming the collapse of the Empire on the characteristics of pagan Roman society -- slavery, the Games, sexual license, corruption, etc. Since this is more or less the Christian critique of pagan society, we have the curious case of critics maintaining the perspective of Christian moralism even while rejecting Christianity as the appropriate response. This not entirely coherent approach also results in the doublethink of moral satisfaction with the "fall" of the (Western) Empire in 476 while carefully ignoring the survival and resurgence of the Empire in the East. The truth, as it happens, is one of continuity. The very same institutions, both Roman and Christian in sum and detail, that failed in the West in the face of the German threat, did just fine in the East, long outlasting, and in two dramatic cases defeating, the German successor kingdoms. What neither Trajan nor Constantine nor Justinian could have anticipated were the blows that would fall next.
A. "DOMINATE," 284-379, 95 years
290 AD
Intrinsically one of the most interesting and important Augustus 284-305, retired 305, Diocletian periods in Roman history, the 286-305 East died 311 or 313 Tetrarchy unfortunately suffers from the relative Usurper 306-308, Maximian Augustus 286-305 West poverty of the sources we 310 West have for it. Despite the rich Constantius I Chlorus Caesar 293-305 West Augustus 305-306 West literature of the 4th century, Diocletian never got a Tacitus Galerius Caesar 293-305 East Augustus 305-311 East or Suetonius, and what Ammianus Marcellinus may Maximinus II Daia Caesar 305-309 East Augustus 309-313 East have said about him is now lost. Part of this may be Severus Caesar 305-306 West Augustus 306-307 West because history moved so Augustus 307-308 West, quickly after Diocletian. He Constantine I Caesar 306-307 West, could still have been alive 309-337 West, the Great 308-309 West when Constantine legalized 324-337 East Christianity, and it was, of course, Constantine whom [Maxentius] Usurper 306-312, Italy subsequent Christian writers wanted to glorify. But Licinius Augustus 308-324 East Diocletian created a system [Domitius Alexander] Usurper 308-311, Africa that was the closest to a constitutional order than Rome ever had. Its enemy was hereditary succession, which had triumphed in Constantine, if imperfectly, by the end of the period. So here, not just in religion, we have a turning point. The succession by appointment, adoption, or marriage of the Antonines is now seen for very nearly the last time. The complexity of this, and of events, can be seen, not just in the following genealogy, but in the Chart of the Tetrarchy. As the first Emperor with a very clearly Greek name (Diocls, before being Latinized to Diocletianus), Diocletian foreshadows the later Greek character of the Empire. It is also from this point that the status of the Emperor is elevated far beyond that of a mere official to a being with semi-divine status, altering the form of government from "Principate" (from princeps, "prince" or "first") to "Dominate" (from dominus, "lord"). The fiction that the Emperor is actually a kind of Republican official is now gone. This elevation was simply transformed, not rolled back or abolished, by the Christianization of the office.
1. TETRARCHS
One of the most famous aspects of Diocletian's rule is the famous "Edict on Maximum Prices" of 301 AD. Since Diocletian himself explains the law as needed to prevent some from profiteering off of the basic needs of others, this is turns out to be relevant to many modern debates. The "greed" of those who make a profit while prices rise is still a point of useful political appeal for many politicians and leftist activists. It looks, however, like prices, especially agricultural prices, were rising under Diocletian because the tax burden had become so large that many people simply abandoned their farms -- Diocletian also tried forbidding this. Since Dioceltian himself was not a sympathetic person to Christian writers, the charge of "greed" tends to get turned around, as the contemporary writer Lactantius, appointed by Diocletian himself as a professor of Latin
literature in Nicomedia, the capital, says, "...Diocletian with his insatiable greed..." Lactantius' account of bureaucratic excess and behavior could apply in many modern situations: The number of recipients began to exceed the number of contributors by so much that, with farmers' resources exhausted by the enormous size of the requisitions, fields became deserted and cultivated land was turned into forest. To ensure that terror was universal, provinces too were cut into fragments; many governors and even more officials were imposed on individual regions, almost on individual cities, and to these were added numerous accountants, controllers and prefects' deputies. The activities of all these people were very rarely civil... [J.J. Wilkes, Diocletian's Palace, Split: Residence of a Retired Roman Emperor, Oxbow Books, Oxford, 1986, 1993, p.5] Not only now are there whole countries where the dependent classes exceed the numbers of the productive classes (e.g. Italy or France), but in the United States the fate of the Social Security system will probably be sealed when the number of beneficiaries exceeds the number of contributors. These modern systems, although voted in by popular majorites who like "free lunch" welfare politics, are run by bureaucrats whose behavior, of course, is "very rarely civil" either to contributors or beneficiaries. And modern bureaucrats are protected from accountability by "Civil Service" status and their own politically active and powerful public employee labor unions. Yet politicians rarely characterize or criticize such people for their own self-interest or greed, although this phenomenon is now well understood and described in Public Choice economics. While the behavior of the bureaucrats is understandable, the harshest truth is that, with sovereignty no longer invested in a autocrat like Diocletian, the ultimate "greed" today is derived from the voters.
330 AD 2. CONSTANTIANS Constantius I Chlorus Constantine I the Great 293-306 W 306-337 W+E
Council I, Nicaea I, Nicene Creed, 325 Constantine II Constans I [Magnentius] Constantius II Gallus 337-340 W 337-350 W 350-353 W 337-361 E+W 351-354 E, Caesar
If the Tetrarchy was a major turning point in Roman history, with Constantine we are right around the corner and looking down a very different avenue of time. Here is where the die-hard paganophile Romanists check out, and where the Byzantinists check in. But the changes that take place are mostly, as they had been for some time, gradual. Even Constantine's Christianity was a gradual affair. He did not actually convert until on his deathbed; and although he outlawed pagan sacrifice, he did not close the temples or otherwise show disrespect or hostility to the old gods, and in fact seems to have long still invoked Sol Invictus, the "Unconquered Sun" of Aurelian and Diocletian. He may have imagined a sort of syncretism such as had been common in the old religions but that was not going to be tolerated in Christianity. When Constantinople was built, the old acropolis was left alone. Indeed, it may have been left alone for much of the Middle Ages. A statue of Athena is supposed to have still been standing when the Fourth
Crusade arrived in 1203. Remarkably, this may have still 355-360 W, Caesar; been the bronze statute of Athena Promachos which had Julian the Apostate 360-363, Augustus stood in the open on the Acropolis at Athens, reportedly visible from out to sea, and was moved to the new city by non-dynastic Constantine. The statue was only then torn down because some thought she was beckoning to the Crusaders. It is now Jovian 363-364 hard to tell what may have been on the acropolis all that time because the site was finally put to a new use by the Ottomans, who built the great Topkap Palace there. It is certainly the right place for such a building, and so one is a little surprised to learn that no major building, as far as we know, was put there all the years of Romania. Even the beginning of Constantine's attachment to Christianity is obscure. The story that he saw a vision of the Cross in the sky with the inscription Hc Vince ("By this [sign, sign] Conquer") before (or during) the battle of the Milvian Bridge, when he defeated Maxentius in 312, comes very much later in hagiography [I indicate the long "o," since hoc is in the ablative, although this would not have figured in any such Latin inscription]. The earliest mention of anything of the sort, by Lactantius again, is that Constantine had a dream where he was shown the "cypher of Christ," the Greek letters Chi and Rho, which he caused to be put on the shields of his soldiers. Later versions thus increase the dramatic and miraculous elements of the event, using what later would become the most symbolic of Christianity, the Cross. Using a Christian symbol in any form, however, and for any reason, would have been dramatic enough. Constantine's Empire went to his three sons, who might have shared it with their cousins, but killed them instead. The sons, however, ended up with no heirs themselves, and the last family member on the throne, Julian, was one of the cousins who had escaped the massacre. Julian, whose own writings have been preserved, is one of the better known but stranger figures of the century. Quixotically trying to restore paganism, he only seemed to demonstrate that the old gods were spent and nobody's heart was really in it anymore. Although apparently a fine enough military commander against the Franks, Julian's short reign ended with another Quixotic effort, against Persia. It was not so much the war itself as the ill conceived scale of the invasion, which left Julian all but stranded with his army, deep in Mesopotamia, with the Persians avoiding battle but constantly harassing him. Somehow this had not happened to Alexander, Trajan, Heraclius, or the forces of the Caliph Omar. It cost Julian his life, and his religious cause, since the Christian Jovian was then chosen by the Army.
378 AD
With Valentinian and his brother Valens, Valentinian I 364-375 W Valens 364-378 E the Christian nature of the Empire was sealed. But the future seemed secure defeated and killed by enough. Valentinian was vigorous and competent, even if his brother wasn't so the Visigoths, Battle Gratian 367-383 W much. Unfortunately, Valentinian of Adrianople, 378 apparently died of a heart attack (or perhaps a cerebral hemorage) in a fit of [Magnus Maximus] 383-388 W anger over the insolence of some representatives from the Huns. With Valentinian II 375-392 W Theodosius I, 379-395 E Valens as the senior Emperor, he didn't the Great [Eugenius] 392-394 W wait for assistance before moving to put down a revolt by the Visigoths, who had 394-395 W recently been admitted as refugees from the Huns but were now rising up against mistreatment by their hosts. The resulting battle was close and hard fought but turned into a catastrophic rout, with Valens himself falling. Gratian appointed Theodosius as the new Eastern Emperor to restore the
3. VALENTIANS
situation (marrying him to his sister), which seems to have about the most useful thing he accomplished, before his murder. His brother Valentinian, secured on the throne against the usurper Magnus Maximus by Theodosius, then mostly seems to have been a pawn, until his own death drew Theodosius west (again) to put down the usurper Eugenius. Things thus went steadily down hill after Valentinian. Although the Battle of Adrianople need not have fundamentally affected the strength of the Empire, it acquires great symbolic meaning in retrospect because of the more permanent damage subsequently done by the Visigoths and the weakening of the Empire that attended it.
B. CRISIS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, 379-476, 97 Years
410 AD
One of the most interesting people in the diagram is the Empress Galla Placidia, the daughter of Theodoius I, the wife of Constantius III, and the mother of Valentinian III. With Honorius and Constantius she was buried in the chapel of Saints Nazarius and Celsus in Ravenna. J.B. Bury (History of the Later Roman Empire Vol. 1, Dover 1958, p. 263) says that "her embalmed body in Imperial robes seated on a chair of cypress wood could be seen through a hole in the back till A.D. 1577, when all the contents of the tomb were accidentally burned thourgh the carelessness of children." Mosaics in Ravenna from this period already show the books of the Bible bound in codices, i.e. familiar bound books rather than scrolls. Theodosius may have been called "Great" mainly for 379-395, establishing 394-395, Theodosius I, the Great Athanasian East West Orthodoxy and for actions against Council II, Constantinople I, Arianism condemned, 381; Destruction paganism like closing of the Serapeum, 391; Abolition of the Olympic Games, 394 (?) and sometimes Stilicho 395-408 destroying temples and ending the Arcadius 395-408 E Olympic Games (which, however, 1. THEODOSIANS, WEST WESTERN COMMANDERS 1. THEODOSIANS, EAST
seem to have continued in some form for another century). Otherwise, he did get the Goths 410-421 under control and left Constantius III the Empire, to all 421 W appearances, sound and prepared for the Gadiatorial combat future. Unfortunately, ended in Colosseum, there were two very 404; Rome sacked by serious problems. Visigoths, 410 Castinus 422-425 One was that the Goths remained a 407-411 [Constantine unified and Theodosius in Britain, 408-450 E (III)] aggressive tribe II Gaul & Spain within the Empire, ready to begin defeated by Vandals John 423-425 W rampaging again at in Spain, 422 any time. Another Council III, Ephesus, was that Honorius Nestorianism condemned, 431 and Arcadius, the two sons between whom Felix 425-430 Theodosius divided Valentinian 425-455 W the Empire, were III Atius 430-454 young and inexperienced. Rome sacked by Vandals, 455 Marcian 450-457 E Leaving the Army in the hands of the Council IV, Chalcedon, Monophysitism condemned, 451 German commander Stilicho set the stage for all the evils of divided authority and palace intrigue. The result of this would be disaster. When the times called for a strong soldier Emperor, there wasn't one -- and there would not be one for some time, perhaps not until Heraclius. With the Goths running wild, and an alliance of German tribes crossing the frozen Rhine on New Year's Eve of 407, the institutions were not prepared to bounce back the way Rome had in the 3rd Century. A characteristic moment came when the commander Atius, sometimes called "the Last Roman," who had defeated the Huns at Chalons, was murdered by the incompetent and jealous Emperor Valentinian III. Valentinian's own murder, as the Vandals symbolically arrived to plunder Rome, then left the throne completely at the mercy of the next person to get control of the Army, who was the German Ricimer. Ricimer could not himself, as a German, become Emperor, so he could only retain power by keeping the Emperors as figureheads, or killing them. This was not a formula for retrieving the situation. Suevi, Vandals, & Alans cross Rhine, 1 January 407
Honorius
395-423 W
It is noteworthy that the Venerable Bede (673-735) numbered Theodosius II as the 45th and Marcian as the 46th Emperors since Augustus. This is considerably less than the count we might make now and it interestingly implies that Bede possessed a sort of "official" list from which many ephemeral Emperors were excluded. After Roman Britain disappeared from history, when the usurper Constantine "III" took his troops to Gaul, Bede's History of the English Church and People is just about the first that we then hear of it, three hundred years later. What events filled that time became strongly mythologized, especially around the figure of King Arthur. Bede does not mention Arthur, but he does talk about a British leader against the Angles, Ambrosius Aurelius, who gained a period of peace after defeating the invaders at Badon Hill in about 493 (or 518). This becomes an element of the Arthur story. I suspect that the vividness of the Arthur stories, like that of the Greek epics and of the Mahbhrata in India, is an artifact of a literate society that for a time lost its literacy but remembered, after a fashion, what it was like. The literature on the problem of Arthur and Britain in this period is vast. Two of the more interesting recent books might be The Discovery of King Arthur by Geoffrey Ashe [Guild Publishing, London, 1985] and From Scythia to Camelot, A Radical Reassessment of the Legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Holy Grail by C. Scott Littleton and Linda A. Malcor [Garland Publshing, Inc, New York, 1994]. Littleton and Malcor made the significant discovery that the scene of Arthur's death in Mallory's Morte d'Arthur, where the sword Excalibur was thrown into a lake, occurs in almost identical terms in the legends of the Ossetians in the Caucasus. There is a possible connection, since the Ossetians are descendants of the Alans, and Marcus Aurelius had settled a tribe of Alans, the Iazyges, whom he had defeated in 175 and taken into Roman service, in the north of Britain, where many of them settled at Bremetenacum Veteranorum, south of Lancaster. The legion to
which the Iazyges were assigned, the VI Legion Victrix, was commanded by one Lucius Artorius Castus. "Artorius" looks like the Latin source of the name "Arthur." There is nothing certain about the speculations and disputes over all this, however, except that they will be endless. 2. LAST WESTERN EMPERORS [names in brackets not recognized by East] [Petronius Maximus] Avitus Majorian [Libius Severus] interregnum Anthemius 455 W 455-456 W 457-461 W 461-465 W 465-467 W 467-472 W Ricimer 456-472
WESTERN COMMANDERS
Joint E/W expedition against Vandals fails, 468 [Olybrius] interregnum [Glycerius] Julius Nepos 472 W 472-473 W Gundobad, King of Burgundy 473 W 473-480 W Orestes [Romulus "Augustulus"] 475-476 W Odoacer 476-493 473-476 472-473
The last twenty years of the Western Empire are mainly the story of the commander Ricimer. The last Western Emperor really worthy of the name was probably Majorian, who was a military man in his own right and operated in Gaul. He suffered a defeat and was murdered by Ricimer. Henceforth, the Emperors were mainly puppets and operations were confined to Italy. The rest of the Western Empire fell almost by default to the Vandals, Visigoths, and Burgundians. A Roman pocket under local commanders remained in the north of Gaul until the Frankish King Clovis subjugated it in 486. Ricimer was once perusaded to accept an Emperor from the East, Anthemius, and to participate in an assault on the Vandals; but this was a disaster, and he ended his "reign" with another figurehead on the throne. After a King of Burgundy, Gundobad, briefly had his own figurehead on the throne, a new nominee of the Eastern Emperor, Julius Nepos, and a new commander, Orestes, were installed. But, rather than work together to get things organized again, Nepos was chased out to Dalmatia by Orestes, who put his own son,
a child, on the throne. In 476, when Orestes and his son were then deposed by Odoacer, who decided to do without a figurehead Emperor, this was the rather anticlimactic "Fall of Rome." Odoacer even returned the Western Regalia to Constantinople. Nepos, meanwhile, was still in Dalamatia. Odoacer got rid of him by 480. Since Odoacer, de jure, was a faithful officer of the Emperor in Constantinople, one could say that the last institutional existence of the Western Empire surived until Odoacer was overthrown by the Ostrogoths in 493.
476 AD
C. THE EAST ALONE, 476-518, 42 Years 1. LEONINES
Leo I purged the Eastern Army of Germans and so turned the East away from the process of barbarization that had rendered the Western Leo I 457-474 E Army useless. A last chance to recoup Joint E/W expedition things for the whole against Vandals fails, 468 Empire came in 468, after Leo had gotten Leo II 473-474 E Ricimer to accept the Zeno the Isaurian 474-491 E+W Theodosian relative (Tarasikodissa) Anthemius as Western Emperor. A [Basiliscus] 475-476 E joint amphibious campaign was put Anastasius I 491-518 together to recover Africa from the Vandals. This should have succeeded, but it failed through a combination of incompetence, treachery, and bad luck. Ricimer may not have really wanted it to succeed, and it wasn't long before he got rid of
Anthemius. After Odoacer decided not to bother with a Western Emperor, Leo's Isaurian son-in-law, Zeno, found himself as the first Emperor of a "united" Empire since Theodosius I, but little was left of the West. Only Odoacer in Italy vaguely acknowledged the Emperor's suzerainty -- we don't know what allegiance, if any, remained in the Roman pocket in northern Gaul. Nothing was done about this at the time, and Anastasius, by temperament or by wisdom, concentrated on allowing the East to rest and build up its strength. Part of that involved reforming the coinage, which is one of the benchmarks for the beginning of "Byzantine" history.
530 AD
D. RETURNING TO THE WEST, 518-610, 92 years
565 AD 1. JUSTINIANS
Justinian took the rested strength of the East and threw it, commanded by his great general Belisarius, against the Vandals and Ostrogoths. The Justin I 518-527 Vandals, caught off guard, collapsed quickly. In 540 the Ostrogoths surrendered to Belisarius, who had to rush East to meet a Persian Justinian I 527-565 invasion. He was too late. Khusro I had already sacked Antioch (540). Plato's Academy closed, 529; Then in 541 the resistance of the Ostrogoths revived, and the plague hit North Africa regained, 533; the Empire. The campaign in Italy then took another 11 years, with men Rome regained, 536; end and money very short. Successful, if exhausted, Justinian was then able to of dating by Consuls, 537; secure part of southern Spain. Meanwhile he had built the greatest church Ostrogoths defeated, 552; in Christendom, Sancta Sophia, codified Roman Law, and driven the last Council V, Constantinople II, pagans, at Plato's Academy, out of business. This wore out the Empire, Monophysitism condemned but it could easily have recovered to new strength if further blows had not again, 553; Andalusia fallen. The Lombards invaded Italy in 568; and although they were regained, 554 unable to secure the whole peninsula, or the major cities (except in the Po valley), they became a source of constant conflict for most of the next Justin II 565-578 two hundred years. Meanwhile, the Danube frontier had become very Lombards Invade Italy, 568 insecure. As early as 540 (again) Bulgars and Slavs were raiding into the Balkans. Maurice not only restored the frontier but crossed it to apply the "forward defense" of the Early Empire. Unfortunately, this hard 574-578, Caesar; Tiberius II 578-582, Augustus campaigning became unpopular with the troops; and in 602 they murdered Maurice and his whole family. Under Phocas, things began to unravel. The Persians began the campaign that would net them the Asiatic
Sack of Athens by Slavs, 582 Maurice 582-602 non-dynastic Phocas 602-610
part of the Empire, recreating the Persia of the Achaeminids, and the Danube frontier collapsed so completely that it would not be restored for almost four hundred years.
At the west end of the Caucasus Mountains, Georgia is the home of an ancient Christian kingdom, and of a people speaking a non-IndoEuropean language, which has affinities with other Caucasian Guaram I 588-595 languages, but none elsewhere. The Roman client states of Colchis/ Lazica and Iberia had long been in existence when they Stephen I 595-627 converted to Christianity around 330. A unique alphabet was created for their unique language about Adarnase I 627-639 the same time that the same thing was done for Stephen II 639-c.650 Armenian -- in fact it is supposed to have been done by the same person, St. Mesrop. The modern alphabet, as seen above, is a more Adarnase II c.650-c.684 recent creation. Unlike Monophysite Armenia, Georgia adopted the principles of the Ecumenical Councils, the Roman Catholic Church at Guaram II c.684-695 the time, or the Greek Orthodox Church now. Subsequently, like Armenia, Iberia was often under Persian control, while Lazica Arab Rule, 695-888 remained Roman in the ongoing Persian tug-of-war with Romania (and another Georgian state, Abasgia, Guaram III 695-c.748 KINGS OF ABASGIA was independent). This list begins about Nerse c.748-c.760 the time Iberia came back under Roman independence protection. Briefly under the Persians Stephen III c.760-779/80 again, a much longer period of foreign Leon II 767-811 rule commenced with the Islmic Juansher 779/80-807 conquest. Part of Georgia, Abasgia, Theodosius II 811-837 became independent first. When Iberia interregnum, 807-813 Demetrius II 811-837 followed, it was for a time even under
2. KINGS OF IBERIA/ GEORGIA
Ashot
813-830
interregnum, 830-843 Bagrat I David I 842/3-876 876-888
Abasgian rule, but then Abasgia and Iberia were unified in what might be called the first complete state of Georgia. The Seljuk Turks only occupied part of Georgia, and were expelled from the rest by David II. Georgia was then largely unmolested until the Mongols arrived, when, like any sensible small state, it became a client. The Mongol grip loosened, but then Tamerlane arrived, intent on terrorizing the small Christian kingdom. Aftewards, Georgia was then relatively unmolested again, until it became a plaything of the new Empires, Safavid Persia, Ottoman Turkey, and Tsarist Russia. In the 18th century, there were new Georgian kings, but the Russians eventually did away with the line.
George I John Adarnase Bagrat I Constantine II George II Leon III Demetrius III Theodosius III Bagrat III
872-876 876-880 880-887 887-898 898-916 916-960 960-969 969-976 976-978 978-1014
independence, 888 Adarnase IV 888-912
to Abasgia, 912-923 David II Bagrat II Gurgen II Bagrat III George I Bagrat IV 923-937 937-994 994-1008 1008-1014 1014-1027 1027-1072 Seljuk Rule George II David II Demetrius I David III George III Tamar (f) David Soslan George IV Rusudani (f) 1072-1089 1089-1125 1125-1154, 1155-1156 1154-1155 1156-1184 1184-1212 1193-1207 1212-1223 1223-1231, d.1245
union with Georgia, 1008
With the fall of the Soviet Union, Georgia is again independent. Its President ended up being the well known figure, formerly the foreign minister of the Soviet Union, Eduard Shevardnadze. Nevertheless life has not been easy. Abkhazia (the old Abasgia) fought a nasty civil war for independence and did gain autonomy. The Ossetians, descendants of the Alans, also have been aggitating, and fighting, for union with the other Ossetian region that remained in Russia. Although Georgia now may be best known for Shevardnadze, the most important Georgian ever will always have a much more sinister fame: Josef Stalin, born Iosif Dzhugashvili. It is not clear that Stalin spared his homeland any of the ferocity that he consistently applied elsewhere. That would have been, in the finest Marxist-Leninist terms, "bourgeois sentimentality." The Abkhazian language, as it happens, is not actually Georgian, but an unrelated language from another Causasian language group, of which there seem to be three. Abkhazian is related to Kabardian, better known as Circassian -- the source of famous slave troops, like the Mamlks, in Mediaeval Islm. The languages have extraordinarily large sets of consonsants and few vowels. The best known language in the third unique language group is probably Chechen, whose speakers have been fighting a nasty independence war against Russia. Georgian
Mongol Rule, 1231-1295 David IV David V Demetrius II Vakhtang II David VI Vakhtang III George V George VI David VII 1250-1258, d.1293 1250-1269 1273-1289 1289-1292 1292-1310 1301-1307 1307-1314 1299-1346 1346-1360
Bagrat V the Great 1355-1387 George VII 1355-1405
and these other related and unrelated languages of the Caucasus are the last examples of non-Indo-European and non-Semitic languages in the Middle East. They may be the remnants of once extensive ancient language families, which could have included the languages of the kingdoms of Sumer, Elam, and Urart.u, as well as of the Hurrians and the Kassites. Except for Sumerian and Elamite, however, these languages are poorly attested, and many years separate the last examples of Sumerian and Elamite from the first attested examples of the Caucasian languages. I have heard about some affinities, even with the Dravidian languages, but I do not have recent scholarly sources that express any confidence about such things. On the other hand, Georgian is an "ergative" language, like Basque, the surviving non-IndoEuropean language of Western Europe, which could well have been related to the known ancient non-Indo-European language, Etruscan. In ergative languages, the subject of intransitive verbs is marked in the same case ("absolutive") as the objects of transitive verbs. The subject of a transitive verb is then in the "ergative" case. This "ergative/ absolutive" distinction contrasts with the "nominative/accusative" distinction of Indo-European (and Semitic) languages. That Basque could be related to Causasian languages is always possible, but nothing has been demonstrated with any certainty. All these mysteries highlight how much information was lost about human history before such things started getting preserved in historical records. This list is based on Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies. Some of the dates he gives seem inconsistent with other sources about Georgian history, and the numbering is a little mysterious (two David II's), but I have never seen any other list of Iberian or Georgian kings elsewhere. Good linguistic information about the Caucasus is in The Atlas of Languages (Facts On File, 1996, pp.50-52). For specifics, I have used Georgian, A Reading Grammar by Howard I. Aronson (Slavica Publishers, Inc., 1989). Republic of Georgia, 1991-present
Tumurid Rule, 1387-1405 Constantine I Alexander I Vakhtang IV Demetrius III George VIII Bagrat VI Constantine II 1405-1412 1412-1442, d.1446 1433-1446 1446-1453 1446-1465, d.1476 1465-1478 1465-1505
Persian rule, 1505-1516 & 1620-1683; Ottoman rule, 1516-1620 & 1683-1813; Russian conquest, 1813
III. THIRD EMPIRE, MIDDLE "ROMANIA," EARLY "BYZANTIUM," 610-1059, Era of Diocletian 327-776, 449 years
To most people thinking of the "Roman Empire," we are well into terra incognita here. Yet in 610 the character and problems of the Roman Empire would not have been unfamiliar to Theodosius the Great. A Persian invasion was nothing new. How far it got, all the way to Egypt and the Bosporus, was. Meanwhile, the collapse of the Danube frontier was not now the doing of Germans but of Slavs and Steppe people -- the latter beginning with the Altaic Avars, whose kin would dominate Central Asia in the Middle Ages. The Persians were miraculously defeated; but before the Danube could be regained or the Lombards overcome in Italy, a Bolt from the Blue changed everything. The Arabs, bringing a new religion, Islm, created an entirely new world, which both broke the momentum of Roman recovery and divided the Mediterranean world in a way whose outlines persist until today. Nevertheless, the Empire, restricted to Greece and Anatolia, rode out the flood. It must have been a hard nut, since the Arab Empire otherwise flowed easily all the way to China and the Atlantic. It was hard enough, indeed, that by the end of the "Third Empire" it had been in better health than any Islamic state. The promise of new ascendency, however, was brief.
A. THE ADVENT OF ISLAM, 610-802, 192 years 1. HERACLIANS Heraclius 610-641
Seldom has fortune and ability so blessed a ruler only to turn so completely against him in the end. With the Persians in Egypt, Syria, and Anatolia, and the Avars at the walls of Constantinople, the Roman Empire seemed doomed to complete collapse. Things even got worse after Heraclius arrived from Africa and seized the throne. But then in one of the most brilliant, but far more desperate, campaigns since Alexander, Heraclius audaciously invaded Persia itself. Confident that Constantinople was impregnable, he even wintered with the army in the field, until the Shh Khusro II's own nobility rose up and overthrew him. The
invasion and conquest of Syria, Egypt, & Anatolia by Shh Khusro II, 607-616; his defeat, 623-628; Salona destroyed by Avars, residents move to Spalatum, 620; Cartagena falls to Visigoths, 624; Avar Siege of Constantinople, 626; occupation of Armenia, 633; Palestine lost to the Caliph 'Umar, 636; Syria lost, 640; Egypt invaded, 640 Constantine III & Heracleon 641 641-668, last Emperor to visit Rome as a possession
peace restored the status quo ante bellum; and Heraclius began to use the title of the defeated monarch, the traditional Persian "Great King." Thus Basileus, the Greek word for "King," became the mediaeval Greek word for "Emperor" -- as Greek now (or hereabouts) replaces Latin as the Court language. But then, barely eight years after this exhausting victory, the Arabs, united by Islm, appeared out of the desert and quickly conquered Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. Jerusalem would never be recovered, except temporarily by the Crusaders. Old and ill, Heraclius had to watch his life's work largely melt away, while people said it was the Judgment of God because he had married his niece. But a core for the Empire had been saved.
Constans II Pogonatus
Egypt lost, 642; Genoa (Liguria) lost to Lombards, 642; campaign against the Lombards, 663 Constantine IV 668-685
Siege of Constantinople by the Caliph Mu'wiya, 674-677; Council VI, Constantinople III, Monotheletism condemned, 680-681 Justinian II Rhinotmetus 685-695, 705-711
Loss of Armenia, 693 non-dynastic Leontius 695-698 Carthage falls, 698 Constans II was the last Emperor to campagin in northern Italy and visit Rome as an Imperial possession (later the Palaeologi went to beg for help). He was also the last to exert real control over the Popes, arresting Martin I (649-653, d.655) and exiling him to the Crimea. Under either Heraclius or Constans II the Roman Army was basically restrucured. As the traditional units,
largely familiar from the 5th Century, fell back from the collapsing frontiers, they were settled on the land in Anatolia, to be paid directly from local revenues instead of from the Treasury, Philippicus Bardanes 711-713 whose tax base from Syria and Egypt had disappeared. The areas (Vardan) set aside for particular units became the themes, which remained Anastasius II 713-715 the bedrock of Romania until the end of the 11th century. After Constantine IV withstood the first Arab siege of Constantinople, Theodosius III 715-717 burning the Arab fleet with the famous and mysterious "Greek Fire" (which sounds like nothing so much as napalm), it looked like the Empire would survive. With the last member of the dynasty, Justinian II, we have a curious experiment in humanity. When the Emperor was deposed in 695, instead of being killed, his nose was cut off. Hence his epithet, Rhinotmetus, "Cut Nose." It was expected that this would disqualify him from attempts at restoration. It didn't, and Justinian returned to power in 705. Henceforth, deposed Emperors, or other politically threatening persons, would be blinded. This was effective, though now it may not seem particularly more humane than execution. Tiberius III 698-705 2. PRINCES OF ARMENIA Mzhezh 628-635
Roman Rule, 633-693 David Toros 635-638 638-643, 645-654
The long period of Persian rule in Armenia comes to an end with the great war of Heraclius to recover the parts of Romania recently occupied by the Persians. The defeat of the Sassanids fortuitously frees Armenia also. This was to be short lived, however, since the Armies of Islm soon arrived. The battle surged back and forth from 653 on, until the Romans were expelled and the Armenians definitely subjugated in 693.
This list is based on Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies. M. Chahin's The Kingdom of Armenia does not give any kings for this period. That is probably Varaz-Tirots 643-645 because these figures were not kings, but "presiding princes," sometimes with rivals, as some were appointed by the Caliphs, others by the Emperors. The Mushegh 654-655 Bagratunis (often named "Ashot"), although later to lead Armenia to independence again, tended to be the Arab candidates, while other families, like Hamazasp 655-658 the Mamikoneans, were the pro-Roman candidates. The complexity of this is Gregory I described by A.E. Redgate, in The Armenians [Basil Blackwell, 1998, 2000, 662-684/5 Mamikonean pp.166-175]. Redgate provides some genealogy but, like Chahin, gives no list of succession. He dispenses with attempting to number the names. Gordon's Ashot II 686-690 numbering is not entirely accounted for, since I do not otherwise find an "Ashot I" on the list. This may be because the numbering is by heads of family rather Nerseh 690-691 than by the office. Smbat VI Bagratuni 691-711 Armenia Continued
Arab Rule, 693-885
Ashot III Bagratuni
732-748
revolt, 747/8-750 Gregory II 748-750 Mamikonean Mushegh II Sahak III Smbat VII 750-755 755-761 761-772
The maps of Romania now become much smaller. Egypt, Palestine, Spain, and North Africa are gone forever. Footholds in Italy and the Balkans remain. Greece and the Balkans would be recovered in time, but everything in Italy Tachat 780-782/5 would eventually be lost also. For the time being, the heartland of the Empire Andzewats'i will be Asia Minor. Although this would provide the resources for revival, even interregnum, 782/5-806 for colonization back into Greece, it was still open to Arab raids. They could not be precluded for a couple of centuries.
interregnum, 772-780; revolt, 774-775
3. SYRIANS (ISAURIANS) Leo III 717-741
Siege of Constantinople by the Caliphs Sulaymn & 'Umar II, 717-718 Tax Revolt in Italy, end of Imperial authority in Exarchate, Exarch Paulicius The prohibition of religious images began the Iconoclasm controversy. One way to understand it is to realize that the conflict between Islm and assassinated, 727; Edict establishing Iconoclasm, 730 Christendom was not just a contest of arms but, mutatis mutandis, an ideological struggle. Christians were not being accused, to be sure, of oppressing the workers, but they were being accused of being polytheists Constantine V 741-775 (because of the Trinity) and idolaters (for making and venerating images). Copronymus Indeed, some Islmic attitudes are familiar from later religious ideological Ravenna Falls to Lombards, conflict, since disgust and condemnation of a priesthood and celibacy, not to mention the use of images, could later draw sympathy from 751; Iconoclast Council, Protestantism. The Thousand and One Nights derives great humor from the 754 notion that the incense burned by Christians (but not, of course, by later Leo IV the Khazar 775-780 Protestants) was made from the dung of bishops.
While Leo III held off another Arab siege of Constantinople, the position of Romania in the West deteriorated. With Africa gone, it became harder to project authority into Italy and harder to resist the Lombards. John Julius Norwich (A History of Venice, Vintage, 1989) links the election of the first Doge of Venice with Leo's prohibition of images; but the election was in 727, during a tax revolt, not in 730, when Leo did prohibit images, alienating the Western Church.
Constantine VI
780-797 780-790, Regent 792-802
Irene
Council VII, Nicaea II, Iconoclasm condemned, 787 Since Leo III is considered to have come from either Syria or the nearby Isauria, his concern about this issue is supposed to have resulted from his sensitivity to the effect of Islmic charges on the previously Christian populations of the areas, like Syria, conquered by Islm. Conversions did not have to be effected by force, which was prohibited by the Qur'n anyway, but by powerful persuasion (and, easily understood in modern terms, tax incentives). So Leo, a sort of proto-Protestant, decided to clean up Christianity's act. This did not find any traction in the West, however. The Latin Church felt no sting from Islmic ideology. Leo's successes against the Arabs, obvious evidence of the favor of God, became associated with Iconoclasm. After images were restored by Irene, and military reverses seemed to follow, the favor of God was apparently withdrawn. The final Iconoclast period (815-843) was of such mixed military fortunes that worries about the favor of God faded, as Papal support for images had never faltered. The final fall of Ravenna to the Lombards in 751 led to the intervention of the Franks in Italy, at the urging of the Pope. Romania would never return to Central or Northern Italy. This was on the watch of Constantine V, who came to be called "Copronymus," "Name of Dung" -- certainly one the harshest, crudest epithets in the history of royalty. As Frankish power waxed, the Pope took the step of crowning the Frankish King Charles as Emperor in 800. This was during the reign of Irene, who had taken the throne exclusively for herself, the only Empress ever to do so, by having her son Constantine VI blinded (he died, too). Although Irene restored the images and reconciled the Eastern and Western Churches, the Pope decided to arrogate the authority of crowning a proper, male Emperor to himself (later justified with the fraudulent "Donation of Constantine" document, by which Constantine I had supposedly given the entire Western Empire to the Pope). While Charlemagne even offered to marry Irene, who could have regarded him as only the rudest of barbarians, this all signaled a fundamental parting of the ways between the Latin Europe of Pope and Franks (Francia) and the Greek Europe of Romania. Note the parallels between the reign of Irene and that of the Empress Wu (685705) of T'ang Dynasty China.
The list of Doges is taken from Byzantium and Venice, A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations, by
4. DOGES (DUKES) OF VENICE, 727-1797 Orso (Ursus) Ipato Teodato (Deusdedit) Ipato Galla Gaulo Domenico Monegaurio Maurizio I Galbaio Giovanni and Maurizio II Galbaio Obelerio Antenorio 727-738
Donald M. Nicol [Cambridge University Press, 1988, 1999], and Storia di Venezia Volume II, by Eugenio Musatti [4th edition, Fratelli Treves Editori, Milano, 1937]. A complete list can also be found in A History of Venice, by John Julius Norwich [Vintage Books, 1989].
The title of Doge derives from that of a late Roman commander 742, 744-736 of a military frontier, Dux ("leader"). This is cognate to English "Duke." The Doges were always elected, from a 756 variety of families, as their names indicate. Over time their powers were increasingly limited, as Venice evolved 756-765 into an oligarchic Republic. The Duke of Venetia at first would have been like many other Romanian officials in Italy, but 765-787 Constantinople rarely had occasion or ability to exert direct rule over Venice, so over time the city drifted into independence, 787-802 competition, and eventually belligerence. 802-811
Venetia & Dalmatia submit to Franks, 806; Roman fleet reestablishes authority, 807 Beato Angello Partecipazio Giustiniano Partecipazio 808-811 811-827 827-829
Giovanni (I) Partecipazio 829-836 Pietro Tradonico Orso I Badoer (I Partecipazio) Giovanni Badoer (II Partecipazio) 836-864 864-881 881-888
Venice effectively independent, 886 Pietro I Candiano Pietro Tribuno 887 888-912
Orso II Badoer (II Partecipazio) Pietro II Candiano Pietro Badoer (Partecipazio) Pietro III Candiano Pietro IV Candiano Pietro I Orseolo Vitale Candiano Tribuno Menio (Memmo) Pietro II Orseolo Ottone Orseolo Pietro Centranico (Barbolano) Domenico Flabianico Domenico Contarini Domenico Silvio (Selvo)
912-932 932-939 939-942 942-959 959-976 976-978 978-979 979-991 991-1008 1008-1026, 1030-1032 1026-1030 1032-1043 1043-1070 1070-1084 After the Schism of the Eastern and Western Churches (1054), there was considerable religious hostility. However, Venice never quite fit in to the political system of Francia. For a while the Republic paid tribute to the Carolingians but quickly enough shook off any obligation. Playing Constantinople and the West against each other, Venice never really acknowledged the authority of the Frankish or German Emperors and in time was relatively safe in its lagoon from attempts to impose imperial authority. With the decline of Romania, Venice largely pursued its affairs at the expense of Contantinople and only seriously lost influence with the Ottoman conquest.
Trade concession with Romania, 1082; construction of St. Mark's begun Vitale Falier 1084-1096
relics of St. Mark deposited in completed St. Mark's cathedral, 1094 Vitale I Michiel (Michel) Ordelafo Falier 1096-1101 1101-1118 The fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade in 1204 was
Domenico Michiel Pietro Polani Domenico Morosini Vitale II Michiel
1118-1129 1129-1148 1148-1155 1155-1172
all Venetians arrested in Romania, 1171 Sebastiano Ziani Orio Mastropiero (Malipiero) Enrico Dandolo 1172-1178 1178-1192 1192-1205
largely engineered by the Doge Enrico Dandolo, who was actually buried in Sancta Sophia. By the settlement with the Crusaders, Venice was ceded 3/8 of the Empire, and the Doge henceforth styled himself quartae partis et dimidiae totius imperii Romaniae Dominator ("Lord of a quarter and a half [of a quarter] of the whole Empire of Romania"). Norwich interestingly translates this as "Lord of ... the Roman Empire" (p.147), but the phrase was imperium Romaniae, "Empire of Romania," not imperium Romanum, "Roman Empire." Venice was obviously not claiming 3/8 of the Empire of Trajan, but of the much reduced mediaeval Romania.
Fourth Crusade, 1202-1204; Constantinople falls to Crusaders & Venetians, 1204; Venice ceded 3/8 of Romania Pietro Ziani Giacomo Tiepolo Marino Morosini Reniero Zeno 1205-1229 1229-1249 1249-1253 1253-1268
Restoration of Greek rule in Constantinople, 1261 Lorenzo Tiepolo Jacopo Contarini Giovanni Dandolo 1268-1275 1275-1280 1280-1289
Venetians mint Ducats after Roman debasement, 1284 Pietro Gradenigo 1289-1311
Venetian fleet destroyed by Genoa at Curzola, Marco Polo captured, 1298 Marino Zorzi Giovanni Soranzo Francesco Dandolo Bartolomeo Gradenigo Andrea Dandolo 1311-1312 1312-1328 1328-1339 1339-1342 1343-1354 What seems extraordinary about Venice now is how a mere city had become a Great Power, contending on terms of equality, if not superiority, with all of Romania. The tail wagging the dog indeed. What this does is reveal the stark difference in wealth between the cash economy of a commercial republic and, on the one hand, the poverty of subsistent kingdoms, like other Western European states and, on the other hand, the fractured economy of Romania, which had peviously perpetuated commercial traditions. Venice was soon joined by other Italian cities, like Pisa and then Genoa, in excerising the power made possible by their wealth. As commercial life began to return to the North, the Italians began to lose their advantage. After Flanders and the Netherlands became centers of trade and manufacture, the Dukes of Burgundy first benefited from this wealth, then the Hapsburgs, and finally the Netherlands as an independent power. The latter eventuality is especially revealing. The Netherlands was a commercial republic again as Burgundy and the Hapsburg domains had not been. What's more, Amsterdam became the center of European banking, with that preeminence passing from, as it happened, the cities of Lombardy. The next financial centers, of Europe and the World, would be London and then New York. In the course of all that history, the apparent power of the Italian cities was punctured like a balloon in 1498, when King Charles VIII of France invaded Italy. This is one of the events regarded as marking the end of the Middle Ages. It certainty revealed the comparative disadvantage into which the Italian powers had fallen.
Crown Jewels of Romania pawned, 1343; War with Genoa, 1350-1355 Marino Falier Giovanni Gradenigo Giovanni Dolfin Lorenzo Celsi Marco Corner 1354-1355 1355-1356 1356-1361 1361-1365 1365-1368
Corfu acquired, 1368 Andrea Contarini Michele Morosini Antonio Venier Michele Steno Tommaso Mocenigo Francesco Foscari 1368-1382 1382 1382-1400 1400-1413 1414-1423 1423-1457
Thessalonica ceded by Romania, 1423, captured by Turks, 1430; Constantinople falls to Turks, Venetian baillie executed, others executed, enslaved, ransomed, 1453
Pasquale Malipiero Cristoforo Moro
1457-1462 1462-1471
Euboia (Negroponte) falls to Turks, 1470 Nicol Tron Nicol Marcello Pietro Mocenigo Andrea Vendramin Giovanni Mocenigo Marco Barbarigo Agostino Barbarigo 1471-1473 1473-1474 1474-1476 1476-1478 1478-1485 1485-1486 1486-1501
Cyprus passes to Venice, 1489; Modon & Coron in Morea fall to Turks, 1500 Leonardo Loredan Antonio Grimani Andrea Gritti Pietro Lando 1501-1521 1521-1523 1523-1538 1539-1545
Monembasia falls to Turks, 1540 Francesco Donato Marcantonio Trevisan Francesco Venier Lorenzo Priuli Girolamo Priuli Pietro Loredan Alvise I Mocenigo 1545-1553 1553-1554 1554-1556 1556-1559 1559-1567 1567-1570 1570-1577
Turkish Conquest of Cyprus, 1571; Battle of Lepanto, naval defeat of Turkey by Spain, Venice, & Malta, 1571 Sebastiano Venier Nicol da Ponte Pasquale Cicogna Marino Grimani Leonardo Donato Marcantonio Memmo Giovanni Bembo Nicol Donato Antonio Priuli Francesco Contarini Giovanni Corner Nicol Contarini Francesco Erizzo Francesco Molin Carlo Contarini Francesco Corner Bertucci (Albertuccio) Valier Giovanni Pesaro Domenico Contarini 1577-1578 1578-1585 1585-1595 1595-1605 1606-1612 1612-1615 1615-1618 1618 1618-1623 1623-1624 1625-1629 1630-1631 1631-1646 1646-1655 1655-1656 1656 1656-1658 1658-1659 1659-1675 The decline of the Turks in the 17th century allowed a brief Venetian resurgence, but by then a city state was going to be no match for the colonial and maritime powers that were rapidly becoming modern nation states. Napoleon had to exert little enough power to eliminate what had become an anchronism. On the other hand, the art of Venice, in music (Vivaldi), painting (Titian), and architecture, is an enduring and vivid monument. Part of this is a hint of the lost beauty of Constantinople, since St. Mark's Cathedral, crowned with four great horses from the Hippodrome and countless other treasures looted from Constantinople in 1204, is a copy of the vanished Church of the Holy Apostles, the burial place of Constantine and his successors (whose site is now occupied by the Fatih Jamii, the mosque, institute, and burial place of Meh.med II, the Conqueror [Ftih.] of Constantinople). Although decorated with loot, the present church was completed earlier, in 1094, with the help of artisans from the still friendly Emperor.
Conquest of Crete by Turkey, 1669 Nicol Sagredo 1675-1676
Luigi Contarini Marcantonio Giustinian
1676-1684 1684-1688
Poised between Francia and Romania, Venice thus preserves much of the beauty and atmosphere that was lost and forgotten after successive catastrophies to Constantinople.
Parthenon destroyed in explosion under Venetian bombardment, 1687 Francesco Morosini Silvestro Valier Alvise II Mocenigo Giovanni II Corner Alvise III Mocenigo Carlo Ruzzini Alvise Pisani Pietro Grimani Francesco Loredan Marco Foscarini Alvise IV Mocenigo Paolo Renier Lodovico Manin 1688-1694 1694-1700 1700-1709 1709-1722 1722-1732 1732-1735 1735-1741 1741-1752 1752-1762 1762-1763 1763-1778 1779-1789 1789-1797, d. 1802
Venice Falls to Napoleon Bonaparte, 1797
B. REVIVAL AND ASCENDENCY, 802-1059, 257 years
400 years after the opportunity might have originally presented itself, a German finally claimed the title of Roman Emperor. This was the Frank Charlemagne, in a move legitimized by the Pope and by the reign of a woman, Irene, in Constantinople. 1. NICEPHORANS
The reigns of Irene and Nicephorus I begin what Warren Threadgold calls Nicephorus I 802-811 The Byzantine Revival, 780-842 [Stanford U. Press, 1988]. Despite the loss of most of Europe and continuing Arab raids into Anatolia, the Nicephorus killed in battle population and the by Bulgar Khan Krum, 811 economy of the empire were actually growing, and Stauracius 811 Nicephorus was able Michael I Rhangab 811-813 to start transplanting colonies of people Leo V the Armenian 813-820 from the east back into Greece. This Iconoclasm restored, 815 soon led to the recovery of most of the Greek peninsula. Unfortunately for him, the "revival" was not without its setbacks. Nicephorus ended up killed in battle against the Bulgars, and his son Stauracius, proclaimed Emperor, turned out to be paralyzed from a spinal wound. Michael Rhangabe then turned out to be inactive and indecisive and was overthrown by Leo the Armenian, an in-law of the subsequent Amorian dynasty. It would be some time before the Bulgars could be seriously defeated, much less subdued. Until then, it would be impossible to restore the Danube border.
In this period, aptly called the "Second Dark Age," the Arabs took to the sea. With the simultaneous advent of the Vikings, this made both Franks and Romans vulnerable in North and South. Crete was lost for over a century, and Michael II 820-829 fighting began on Sicily that would last for 50 years and result in the permanent the Stammerer loss of the island. Crete lost, 823 Sicily invaded by Aghlabids, 827
2. AMORIANS (PHRYGIANS)
Theophilus I
829-842
Varangians (Vikings) arrive at Constantinople, 839 Michael III 842-867
Final repudiation of Iconoclasm, 843 (Theophilus II) 867
The arrival of the Varangians, which meant the Vikings who had come down the rivers of Russia, ended up providing a source of mercenaries for what became the Emperor's "Varangian Guard," whose ranks would later even fill with Englishmen who fled the Norman conquest in 1066. We also find the last of Iconoclasm laid to rest, though one will note even today that the Orthodox Churches prefer Icons rather than sculpture for sacred images. The resolution of this conflict removed a point of friction between the Western and the Eastern Churches. It did reveal, however, how easily such conflict could arise. The later (1054) Schism of the Churches would be over apparently much more trival issues -- the real issue, of course, was simply authority. We are approaching the point in European history where the remaining pagan peoples of Europe will be assimilated to Christian civilization. Bulgaria will lead the way, but it will soon be following by Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Scandinavia. The Pechenegs (or Patzinaks), a Turkic steppe people, will remain pagans until they are swept from history by the Cumans and Mongols. On the east edge of the map is the Khanate of the Khazars, also Turkic, who actually converted to Judaism. They would be Roman allies until disappearing in the 11th century.
3. BULGARIA BEFORE ROMAN CONQUEST Asparukh Tervel Sevar Kormesios Vinekh 762-763 Teletz Umar Baian Tokt Telerig Kardam Krum 763 763-765 765 c.765-777 c.777-c.803 c.803-814 Qaghan, c.681-701 c.701-c.718 c.718-750 750-762
Kills Emperor Nicephorus in battle, 811; uses his skull as a drinking cup Dukum Ditzveg Omurtag Malamir/Malomir Presijan 814-815 814-816 814-831 831-836 836-852 Qaghan, 852-870 Boris I/ Emperor Michael I
Although today the Bulgarians are thought of as simply a Slavic people, like the Russians or Serbs, they were originally a nomadic Turkic steppe people, more like the Huns or Mongols. The first title of their leaders here, qaghan, is recognizably more Mongolian than the form more familiar from Turkish, khn. The Slavs, who had breached the Danube with the Avars, but who had little in the way of indigenous political organization, then came under the control of the Bulgars, the next nomadic group to pop off the end of the steppe. A related people, the Khazars, who remained on the Lower Volga, became long term Roman allies against the Bulgars. Other related peoples, the Patzinaks and Cumans, followed the Bulgars off the steppe and into the Balkans, though not permanently south of the Danube. After the Cumans, the Mongols were the last steppe people to come into Europe. Through the Middle East, of course, the Turks (and the Mongols) came off the steppe and ultimately, permanently, into Azerbaijan, Anatolia, and Thrace. Fans of Robert E. Howard's (1906-1936) classic pulp fiction character Conan the Barbarian, will find the name of the Bulgar
Emperor/Tsar, 870-889, d.907 Council VIII, Constantinople IV, 869-870; conversion of Bulgaria announced Vladimir Simeon I the Great Peter I Boris II 889-893 893-927 927-969 969-972, d.986
Qaghan Krum somewhat familar -- it is rather like Conan's own personal god, "Crom." Krum, indeed, seems very Conan-like. Not only was the Emperor Nicephorus killed in battle, but Krum took his skull and turned it into a drinking cup. This sounds like "barbarism" indeed -though Lord Kitchener (1850-1916) may have had something similar in mind when he removed the body of the Sudanese Mahdi from his tomb, after taking Khartoum in 1898. More recently, readers of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire [J.K. Rowling, Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic, Inc., 2000] will remember that the champion Bulgarian Quidditch player was none other than Viktor Krum. What happened to the Bulgars was assimilation. The Patzinaks pushed them off the steppe, they began to speak the language of
Bulgaria conquered by John I Tzimisces, 971 Macedonian Bulgaria; state organized in western Bulgaria by the Cometopuli, "Sons of the Count" Tsar Romanus Samuel figurehead, 986-997; captured, 991 997-1014
Army annihilated by Basil II, 1014 Gabriel Radomir John Vladislav 1014-1015 1015-1018
Bulgaria annexed by Basil II, 1018
their Slavic subjects, and they began to aspire to the civilization, if not the throne, of Constantinople. The conversion of the Bulgars, indeed, was a complicated political act, with sophisticated negotiations that played the Popes off the Emperors. Greek influence ended up predominating, but the Bulgars continued jealous of their autonomy -- the precedent of an autocephalous Church set the pattern for other Orthodox Churches, as in Russia, created under Roman auspices. The Qaghan Boris took the Christian name Michael (though both names would be used in the future), but retained a status comparable to the Roman Emperor. The newly invented Cyrillic alphabet was used for the Slavic language of the new national Church. This language, Old Church Slavonic, is the oldest attested Slavic language and retains features apparently ancestral of most modern Slavic languages. Although remaining a formidable foe, the Bulgars were probably softened by their assimiliation and civilization. As the Empire itself grew in strength, the day came when Bulgaria was defeated and subjugated. The first step merely left it leaderless, as John Tzimisces took Emperor Boris II off to Constantinople. A new state was organized in the west, however, by the sons of the Bulgar governor Count Nicholas. These "Sons of the Count," Cometopuli, eventually got an Emperor back after Boris and his brother Romanus escaped captivity. Boris was accidentially killed, so Romanus became the, largely figurehead, ruler. The Emperor Basil II then smashed and annexed this state, with a ferocity that that might have made Krum (or Conan) proud. Samuel is supposed to have dropped dead when he saw that Basil had blinded all the survivors of the Bulgarian army (leaving every tenth man with one eye to lead the rest). Bulgaria would not reemerge until the Asen brothers led it to independence in 1186. After the Turkish conquest, modern Bulgaria did not emerge until 1878. Lists of Bulgarian rulers can be found in various Byzantine histories, but the genealogy here only comes from the Erzhlende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europischen Geschichte, Volume II, Part 2, Europiche Kaiser-, Knigs- und Frstenhuser II Nord-, Ost- und Sdeuropa [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Part 2, Second Edition, 1997, pp.156-159]. 4. MACEDONIANS Basil I 867-886
The greatest dynasty of Middle Romania begins with the Empire still losing ground. Raids by the Arabs, Vikings, and now Magyars are giving all of Europe a very bad time. Only the 10th Century would see a gradual recovery, as Slavs, Norsemen, and Magyars all became settled and Christianized, though the Normans remained vigorous and
Arabs sack suburbs of Rome, including the Vatican, 846; Varangians attack Constantinople, 865; Council VIII, Constantinople IV, 869-870 -- reconciles Eastern and Western Churches but is later repudiated by East; conversion of Bulgaria announced. Syracuse falls to Aghlabids 878; Venice effectively independent, 886 Leo VI the Wise 886-912
aggressive in both North and South, i.e. conquering England and expelling Romania from Italy. Much of the good work of the Dynasty was accomplished by in-laws during the minority of the legitimate heirs, though the culmination came when one heir, Basil II, came of age and completed the conquests himself. Although traditionally called the "Macedonian" dynasty, Basil I was probably Armenian, like several of the other Emperors-by-marriage. But, ironically, the dynasty may actually descend from Michael III rather than from Basil. Basil had been induced to marry Michael's mistress; and although the marriage continued even after Basil had overthrown Michael, the first children may still have been Michael's. The climax of Mediaeval Romania came with the Emperor Basil II Bulgaroctonus ("Bulgar Slayer," Bulgarentter in German). He also happened to be ruling at the turn of the first Millennium, which is of some interest as we have now seen the year 2000. Christendom had been having a bad time for several centuries, but things were looking up in 1000. In our day, the movie, End of Days (Universal, 1999), has Arnold Schwarzenegger personally battling Satan, who is said to be released every thousand years (a somewhat loose reading of the Book of Revelation). This would mean that a similar difficulty occurred in 999, as well as 1999. Arnold wasn't around then, but Basil II was -- not only a great warrior but an Emperor who maintained a monk-like celibacy, and who was seen by most Christians as the principal defendor of Christendom, as the Emperors had been since Constantine. Somebody missed a bet for a good movie, or at least a flashback, about that -- End of Days itself could have had a flashback explaining how Satan was easily thwarted in 999 by the undiminished wisdom, strength, and preparedness of Basil, Pope Sylvester II (this was before the Schism), and the Patriarch Sergius II of Constantinople. The monks of the "Holy Mountain," Mt. Athos, could also have been brought into it.
Varangians/Russians attack Constantinople, 907 Alexander Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus 886-913 913-959
Varangians/Russians attack Constantinople, 941, 944; Treaty, 944 Romanus I Lecapenus Stephen & Constantine Romanus II 919-944 944-945 959-963
Crete recovered, 961 Nicephorus II Phocas 963-969
Cyprus recovered, 964; Cilicia & Tarsus recovered, 965; Antioch recovered from H.amdnids, 969
Romania in 1000 AD; the Millennium, with the height of Middle Romanian power rapidly approaching. The extent of Bulgaria is open to
John I Tzimisces
969-976
question. Some sources say it stretched to the Black Sea. Whatever, it will soon be erased by Basil II. Sadly, the great triumph of Romania was shortlived. The last Emperors of the Dynasty, all by marriage, squandered the strength of the State, debased the coinage, and neglected the thematic forces that had been the military foundation of Romania for four hundred years. Imperial guards of mercenaries, as Machiavelli could have warned, could not be relied upon in all circumstances, especially after the finances of the state were messed up. Most symbolically, the breach between the Eastern and Western Churches in 1054 was the one that became permanent and henceforth separated the One Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church into the Pope's Latin Church, usually called "Roman Catholic," and the Patriarch of Constantinople's Greek Church, ususally called "Greek Orthodox" -- along with the other autocephalous "Orthodox" Churches (Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Romanian, etc.). The estrangement in religion came at a very bad time. When the Turks invaded and the Crusading forces arrived from Francia, the Schism was a source of constant irritation and mistrust. It provided some rationalization for the seizure of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade; and later, when the Churches were apparently reconciled by the Palaeologi, it left most Greeks so disaffected that their support for their own government was compromised. Thus, for centuries, Christian forces were divided and weakened in the continuing confrontation with Islm.
Russian Prince Sviatoslav defeated, Bulgaria conquered, 971 Basil II Bulgaroctonus 963-1025
Varangian Guard, 988; Conversion of Russia, 989; Bulgarian Army annihilated, 1014; Macedonian Bulgaria annexed, 1018 Constantine VIII Zo Porphyrogenita Romanus III Argyrus Michael IV the Paphlagonian 976-1028 1028-1050 1028-1034 1034-1041
beginning of debasement of the solidus Michael V Calaphates Theodora Porphyrogenita Constantine IX Monomachus 1041-1042 1042-1056 1042-1055
Occupation of Armenia, 1045 Schism between Eastern and Western Churches, 1054
Here we see the confusion over the paternity of Leo VI. Subsequently, in the minorities of Constantine VII, Basil II, and Constantine VIII, we see multiple reigns from Imperial in-laws. John I and Nicephorus II were extremely vigorous and successful in retrieving Romanian fortunes, finally to be sealed by the adult Basil. After the death of Constantine VIII, only Theodora and Zo, both nuns, remained of the dynasty. Zo endured three marriages to provide male sovereigns. These inlaws were as bad for the Empire as the earlier ones had been good. After the death of Constantine Monomachus, Theodora briefly reigned alone at the end of the line. The genealogy of the Macedonians is supplemented here with an abbreviated tree showing the major foreign marriages of the Dynasty. The marriage of Constantine VII to the daughter of Hugh of Arles is shown above, but there are four other marriages noted here. Two of them are not attested by all sources. Leo VI did have a
daughter Anna (by his second wife), and marrying her to Hugh's predecessor in Burgundy, while his son married Hugh's daughter, produces a reasonable reciprocity; but marrying a true Porphyrogenita, a "Born in the Purple" Princess, to a barbarian king (which is what Louis III would have seemed to most), is something that some sources say was inconceivable, which is why all that the Emperor Otto II got was merely the niece of an Imperial in-law, John Tzimisces. Theophano was no Prophyrogenita. St. Vladimir, however, certainty did marry the Porphyrogenita sister, Anna, of Basil II and Constantine VIII. Since this attended the conversion of Russia to Christianity (989), with the material contribution of Russian (Varangian) troops to the Roman Army, it could well have been thought worth the price. The final marriage here is the most poorly attested and problematic. Brian Tompsett's Royal and Noble Genealogy gives a sister "Irene" for the Empresses Zo and Theodora, who is said to have married Vsevolod of Kiev, grandson (by an earlier marriage) of St. Vladimir. I have not seen a single Macedonian genealogy that lists such an "Irene." This would be of great interest because their son, Vladimir II, was the grandfather of Ingeborg of Novgorod, who married (1118)
Knut Lavard Eriksson, the father of King Valdemar the Great of Denmark (1157-1182). Through the intermarriages of the subsequent royalty of Denmark, we get connections to many of the rulers of Europe. Thus, it is sometimes said that Queen Elizabeth II of England is a descendant of the Emperor Basil I. But that would only be true if Irene really was a Macedonian. Now, however, I have found a new source with a slightly different claim. The Royal Families of Medieval Scandinavia, Flanders, and Kiev, by Rupert Alen and Anna Marie Dahlquist [Kings River Publications, Kingsburg, CA, 1997], says that Irene (or Irina) was "a daughter of Constantine IX Monomach" [p.160]. That is a lot different. Constantine was the Empress Zo's third husband. She was already 64 when they married, so there is not much chance that Irene was her child, but Constantine was a widower, and it is not surprising that he would have previous children. Vladimir II is called "Monomakh," which thus sounds like a tribute to his Roman grandfather. This gives us a much more reasonable picture, but it does mean that Queen Elizabeth is not a descendant of Basil I (or Michael III, whatever). 5. KINGS OF ARMENIA Bagratids Ashot IV Smbat VIII Bagarat II Prince, 806-826 826-855 830-852
revolt against Arabs, 830-855 856-884 Ashot I King, 884-890
Armenian independence recognized by Caliph, 885 Smbat I 890-914
captured by the Amir of Azerbaijan, 913, dies in captivity Ashot II 915-928
restored to Armenia by Romans, 915 Abas 928-951
briefly submitted to Sayf ad-Dawla, 940 Ashot III Smbat II 951-977 977-989
As Romania recovered against Islm and Gagik I 989-1019 her other enemies, Armenia recovered also and freed herself, to enjoy nearly two Smbat III 1020-1041 centuries of independence. Ashot Bagratuni was recognized as King by the Ashot IV 1020-1040 Caliph in 884, and by the Emperor shortly afterwards. This restored the Armenian Gagik II 1042-1045 monarchy after a lapse of 456 years (since Roman Occupation, 428). But in time, Armenia, at first an ally 1045-1064 of Constantinople, became a victim of the Roman Seljuk Conquest, 1064 recovery. The foolish later Macedonian Emperors wasted strength reducing Armenia that would have been better spent against more threatening targets. Gagik II, invited to Constantinople, was imprisoned on his arrival. But the dominion of Rome this time lasted barely 20 years, as Armenia was left stranded in a sea of Turks and Mongols for nine centuries, until during World War I the Turks killed or expelled nearly all Armenians from Turkey, leaving only the small domain ruled by Orthodox Russia, now the independent Republic of Armenia. The next Armenian Kingdom would actually not be in Armenia at all, but in the Taurus Mountains of Cilicia: the Kingdom of Lesser Armenia. The list is based on M. Chahin, The Kingdom of Armenia [Dorset Press, New York, 1987, 1991, pp. 264-269]. The genealogy is from A.E. Redgate, The Armenians [Basil Blackwell, 1998, 2000, pp.198-199]. Where Redgate did not number the princely Bagratids, he does number the Kings. Armenia Continued non-dynastic Michael VI Stratioticus Isaac I Comnenus 1056-1057 1057-1059
A very brief non-dynastic interlude. Isaac I was the first of the Comneni and can be found on the genealogy of the Comneni below.
IV. FOURTH EMPIRE, LATE "ROMANIA/BYZANTIUM," 1059-1453, Era of Diocletian 776-1170, 394 years
The "Fourth Empire" begins with a blow, from an Islm reinvigorated by the Turks, which represents not only a further diminution of the Empire, but a portent of the actual collapse and end of the Empire altogether. The catastrophic defeat at Manzikert alienated much of what had for long been the heartland of the Empire, Anatolia. It was a mortal wound, never to be made good; but the Empire nevertheless twice managed to struggle back up into at least local ascendency, first under the Comneni and then under the Palaeologi. The Comneni had help, of a very dangerous sort, in the form of the Crusaders. Defeat by the Turks was not the cruelest cut of the period. That was when the Crusaders, manipulated by Venice, took Constantinople in 1204. With the Latins, the Empire fragmented into multiple Greek and non-Greek contenders: Nicaea, Epirus, Trebizond, Bulgaria, and Serbia, not to mention the Turks. While the Palaeologi, building on the success of Nicaea, reestablished Greek rule, only Epirus of the other successor states came back under Imperial control. The Empire of Michael VIII did seem to have a chance, but a new Turkish state, of the Ottomans, soon surged into dominance. It took more than a century for the Ottomans to scoop up all the spoils, but, like a slow motion car crash, the outcome has a horrible inevitablilty.
A. THE ADVENT OF THE TURKS, 1059-1185, 126 years 1060 AD -- Romanian territory is intact, but the military and financial foundations of Roman power have been undermined. The coinage is debased for the first time since Constantine. Resources have been wasted absorbing Armenia, and the forces of the Armenian themes have been disbanded. Local Islamic states are no threat, but the Seljuks are on the way.
1. DUCASES Constantine X Ducas 1059-1067
Loss of Armenia, 1064 Romanus IV Diogenes 1068-1071
The Ducases had the misfortune of suffering the most catastrophic defeat of Roman arms since the Arabs won Palestine and Syria at Yarmuk in 636: The defeat by the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert in 1071, a battle lost more to treachery than to military superiority. And Romanus IV Diogenes became the only Roman Emperor besides Valerian
to be captured in battle by an external enemy. What had Defeated and Captured by Seljuk Great hitherto been the heartland of Romania in Anatolia, now Sult.n Alp Arslan, Battle of Manzikert; became a bleeding wound to Turkish conquest, never to be Bari captured by Normans, 1071 recovered. Simultaneously, the Normans won, for all time, the last Roman city in Italy. The Ducas genealogy is given below Michael VII Parapinakes 1071-1078 with the Comneni. They were the first Roman dynasty with a Nicephorus III Botaniates 1078-1081 surname, which shows some of the social changes that took place during the long period of the Macedonians. Catastrophe. The heartland of the Empire in Anatolia is completely overrun. Only European possessions, secured not long before, enable Romania to endure and recover, somewhat -- with the dangerous help of the Crusaders.
The first Turkish and Moslem state in Anatolia ironically Sleyman I ibn Qutalmsh 1078-1086 began against the wishes, virtually in rebellion against, the Seljuk Great Sult.n Malik Shh (1073Kilij (Qlch) Arslan I 1092-1107 1092), who was even negotiating with Alexius Comnenus for the withdrawl of Malik Shh 1107-1116 the Turks from the region. However, even the Seljuks were in no position to force such a withdrawl, and Roman Mas'd I Rukn ad-Dn 1116-1156 resistance was so weak that Sleyman had no difficulty establishing his capital at Nicaea. The best that Alexius Kilij Arlsan II 1156-1192 could do was to keep him back from Nicomedia. Meanwhile, even western cities like Ephesus were falling. Myriocephalon, 1176; The Turkish position was secure until defeat by the First Konya sacked by Crusade in 1097. Then Alexius was able to recover the Frederick Barbarosa western cities. The Turks fell back on Iconium (Konya), on the Third Crusade, 1190 which became their capital for the rest of the history of the 1192-1196, Sultanate of Rm. Although sacked by Frederick Barbarosa Kay Khusraw (Khosru) I 1205-1210 on the Third Crusade (1190), Konya was lost forever to Romania. The Sultanate already, however, seemed to have Sleyman II 1196-1204 lost its edge. The devastating defeat of Manuel Comnenus at Myriocephalum (1176) was not followed up, and the Kilij Arlsan III 'Izz ad-Dn 1204-1205 subsequent decline of Romania was mainly from internal weakening and fragmentation (readying it for the Fourth Kay Kws I 1210-1220 Crusade). The Sultanate was then defeated by the Mongols in 1243 and spent the rest of its history in vassalage. The
2. SELJUK SULT.NS OF RM
final fall, in 1307, coincided with a very fragmented, but vigorous, period of new Turkish states. Part of his vigor 1237-1246, may have resulted from an influx of refugees from the Kay Khusraw II Ghiyth ad-Dn 1257-1959 Mongols. The Beys of Aydn captured Ephesus in 1304, but the most serious portent for the future was the capture of Prusa (Bursa) in 1326 by the Ottomans. This quickly Defeated by Mongols, Battle of spelled the end of Romania in Asia, and by 1354 the Kse Dagh, become vassals, 1243 Ottomans had a foothold in Europe. Only Tamerlane Kay Kws II 1246-1257 delayed the ultimate Ottoman conquest. Kay Qubdh I 'Al' ad-Dn 1220-1237 Kilij Arslan IV Kay Qbdh II Kay Khosru III Ghiyth ad-Dn 1248-1265 1249-1257 1265-1282 This list is from Clifford Edmund Bosworth's The New Islamic Dynasties [Edinburgh University Press, 1996].
Control by Mongol Governors, 1277 1282-1284, 1284-1293, 1294-1301, 1303-1307 1284, 1293-1294, 1301-1303 1307
Mas'd II
Kay Qbdh III Mas'd III
Deposed by Mongols, 1307 The Empire has recovered as much as it is ever going to, and actually seems in relatively good shape, with deference all the way from Jerusalem to Hungary. But the Sultnate of Rm is a nut that cannot be cracked -- the true seed of doom for Romania. And Roman trade and shipping is now dominated by Venice.
3. COMNENI
With the Turks at Nicaea, the Normans ready to land in the west, the
currency debased, the army dispersed, and the treasury empty, Alexius Comnenus had his job cut out for him. The results were Trade concession to Venice, 1082; satisfactory enough, but a couple of the desperate measures that the desperate times called for would have unfortunate long term First Crusade, 1096-1099 consequences. The trade privileges given to Venice in 1082 eventually made Romanian trade, and even the Navy, the plaything John II 1118-1143 of Italian city states. Calling on the West for military aid against the captures Leon I of Armenia, 1137 Turks had the very unexpected result of Pope Urban II calling in 1095 for a "Crusade" to liberate the Holy Land and Jerusalem from Islm. The Crusaders passing through Constantinople gave Alexius Manuel I 1143-1180 a very bad feeling. The possibility of what actually happened a Second Crusade, 1147-1149; century later, when the Fourth Crusade took Constantinople, was homage of Thoros II of Armenia, already very real. So Alexius bundled them as quickly as possible Reynald of Antioch, & Baldwin III into Asia, where they defeated the Turks, making it possible to drive them out of western Anatolia together. This was of great material of Jerusalem, 1158-1159; help to Romania, but the Turks remained based at Iconium (Konya). secures Dalmatia, Croatia, The Roman Army (with the thematic apparatus long gone) was & Bosnia, 1167; never up to the task of dislodging them entirely. That this could all Venetians arrested have been done was revealed when Frederick Barbarosa, passing in Romania, 1171; through on the Third Crusade, broke into Konya and sacked it Myriocephalon, defeat by (1190). That he died shortly thereafter steals the thunder from this Kilij Arlsan II, 1176 act, but it is noteworthy. Meanwhile, the greatest military successes Alexius II 1180-1183 of the Comneni, by Manuel I, when his suzerainty was acknowledged by Lesser Armenia, Antioch, and even Jerusalem, Serbia independent, 1180; were undone by a devastating defeat in 1176 at Myriocephalum Bela III takes Dalmatia, ("Ten Thousands Heads"). Shortly thereafter Serbia breaks away, Bosnia, & Sirmium beginning a process of disintegration that would never be entirely reversed. Andronicus I 1183-1185 Alexius I Comnenus 1081-1118 Curiously, in the days of Alexius I the heart of the Roman Army, the Varangian Guard, had a large element of Saxons, conquerors of Isaac Comnenus Roman Britain, who now were refugees from the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. According to Geoffroy de Villehardouin, there were still "Englishmen and Danes" in the Roman Army when the Fourth Crusade arrived at Constantinople in 1203. Emperor on Cyprus, 1185-1191
Anna Comnena (d.1153), daughter of Alexius I, wrote a history of her father's reign, the Alexiad. Most of it was written after she was banished to a convent by her brother, John II, whom she apparently had tried to assassinate. This particularly intense form of sibling rivalry was in part the result of Anna's expectation that she would be closer to the seat of power, i.e. that the Emperor would be her husband. The birth of John spoiled this, and Anna, perhaps a feminist before her time, never accepted the wisdom of his succession. She blamed him for subsequent disasters but, since the Alexiad doesn't cover his reign, she never quite says what they were. The real disaster, Myriocephalum, happened after her death to her nephew, Manuel I. One reference to the Alexiad that I remember from childhood, that Anna says her father didn't trust the Crusaders because they didn't have beards and smelled of horses, I have been unable to find in the text.
4. LESSER ARMENIA Ruben I 1080-1095 1095-? The Kingdom of Armenia in the Taurus Mountains of Cilicia is called "Lesser" Armenia in contrast to the "Greater Armenia" of the Armenian homeland to the northeast. After Nicephorus II Phocas
recovered the area from the Arabs in 965 and ordered all Moslems to leave, Christians from Syria and Armenia were encouraged to settle and garrison the area. Nicephorus himself even welcomed "schismatic," Armenian First Crusade, 1096-1099 Orthodox Monophysites from Armenia, but this tolerance would not always continue and some friction was inevitable between many Theodore/Thoros I Armenians and the Imperial (the, strictly speaking, "Roman Catholic") Church. After the Seljuk breakthrough, more Armenians Leon I c.1129-1137 must have fled from the east as the Turks overran Anatolia. The captured by John II, 1137; Armenians in the Taurus found themselves on their own and began dies in Constantinople organizing their own domains. When the Crusaders passed through, they were welcomed and aided. A daughter of Constantine I was escaped, 1145; married to Joscelin I, Count of Edessa, ushering in a long history of Thoros II 1148-1168 association and intermarriage between the Armenians and the Crusader states. This made Lesser Armenia rather like a Crusader homage to Manuel I, 1158 State itself, and so it is shown on the map. Prince, 1099; King? Ruben II Ruben III 1168-1175 1175-1185 Prince, 1185-1198 King, 1198-1219 1219-1269 regent, 1219-1205 1205-?
Constantine I
Leon/Levon II the Great
Isabella/Zabel Constantine Philip of Antioch
son of Behemond IV of Antioch Hethoum I the Great Leon III Hethoum II the One-Eyed Thoros III Leon IV of Cyprus 1305-1307 1226-1269 1270-1289 1289-1305
Sempad & Constantine II Oshin Leon V Constantine III, Lord of Neghir Guy Lusignan 1342-1344 1307-1320 1320-1342
son of Amalric of Tyre, King of Cyprus Constantine IV Constantine V Leon VI 1344-1363 1363-1373 1373-1375, d. 1393 Kingdom falls to Mamlks, 1375 there is this disagreement.
This list of kings is mainly based on M. Chahin, The Kingdom of Armenia [Dorset Press, New York, 1987, 1991]. However, Steven Runciman, in his A History of the Crusades, Volume III, The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades [Cambridge, 1951, 1987], gives a more complete family tree, abstracted below. Runciman, maddeningly (but characteristically), gives not a single date; but he does give a number of figures who account for the numbering of the Constantines and Thoroses in the dynasty. According to Chahin's list, these were not reigning kings, but, even if not, they were numbered as members of the dynasty. Or they may have been co-regents unrecognized by Chahin. On the other hand, Constantine IV and V are not listed by Runciman in the dynastic tree because they were both usurpers. "Peter of Cyprus" listed by Chahin is Peter I of Cyprus. Constantine V offered him the throne but then decided to keep it for himself when Peter was assassinated. This information is supplemented by Warren Threadgold's A History of the Byzantine State and Society [Stanford, 1997]. Chahin fails to mention, for instance, the capture of Leon I and his sons (including Thoros II) by the Emperor John II Comnenus. On the other hand, while Runciman and Chahin agree that the early Rupenids were "princes," without a royal title until 1198, Threadgold says that they began calling themselves "kings" in 1099. Since none of them give the actual terms they were using, perhaps just in Armenian, it is hard to know why
Of greatest interest in the genealogy is when the house of Lesser Armenia

makes reciprocal marriages with the Lusignan dynasty of Cyprus. This begins with the children of Leon III and Hugh III of Cyprus. Two sons and three daughters of Leon III married children of Hugh III. The result is that the succession of Lesser Armenia actually passes to to Lusignan. Such a close connection might have protected the Armenians, if Cyprus had been enough of a power to resist the Mamlks, which, at least on land, it was not. The Kingdom of Lesser Armenia was the last independent Armenian state until the former Soviet Republic of Armenia became independent in 1991.
B. THE LATIN EMPIRE, 1185-1261, 76 years 1. ANGELI
The worst dynasty in Roman history. Alexius IV brings in the Isaac II Angelus 1185-1195 Fourth Crusade, with impossible promises, to restore his incompetent father, and only succeeds in losing Constantinople to a foreign enemy for the first time ever. This may qualify as the Bulgaria independent, 1186 Third Crusade, 1189-1192; Cyprus true "Fall of Rome." The damage was bad enough, with many treasures and archives destroyed or carted off to Venice. Unlike seized from Isaac Comnenus the Goths at Rome in 410, the Crusaders stuck around for 60 by Richard the Lionheart, given years, with streadily decreasing success. to Guy of Lusignan, 1191 Alexius III 1195-1203
Kingdom of Lesser Armenia independent, 1198-1375 Isaac II (restored) Alexius IV Alexius V Mourtzouphlos 1203-1204 1203-1204 1204
Fourth Crusade, 1202-1204 Constantinope falls to Fourth Crusade, 1204
Irene Angelina, daughter of the Isaac II, married a son of Frederick Barbarossa, Philip of Swabia, who contended with Otto of Brunswick for the German Empire. They had no sons; but the marriages of their four daughters are among the most interesting in European history. In a reconciliation of Philip's feud, the oldest
daughter, Beatrice, married Otto himself. But they had no children. The younger daughters, Kunigunde, Marie, and Elizabeth, married King Wenceslas I of Bohemia, Duke Henry III of Lower Lorraine and Brabant, and King & St. Ferdinand III of Castile and Leon, respectively. All of these marriages produced children with living modern descendants, especially among the Hapsburgs and the royal families of Spain, as can be traced at the linked genealogies. Since Isaac himself was a great-grandson of Alexius I Comnenus, this means that a large part of modern European royalty have been descendants of the Comneni. My impression is that Roman Imperial descent for recent royalty has often been claimed through the Macedonians, but the only genuine line, as we have seen, seems to be from Macedonian in-laws. On the other hand, descent from the Angeli and Comneni appears to be well attested and with multiple lines, all from Irene Angelina. 2. BULGARIA, ASENS John I Asen Peter II Asen 1186-1196 1196-1197
Kalojan Asen, 1197-1207 the Roman Killer captures Baldwin I, 1205; kills Boniface of Montferrat, 1207 Boril 1207-1218
In 1204, the Pope recognized Kalojan as "King of the Bulgarians and the Vlachs" (Geoffroy de Villehardouin, calling him "Johanitza," even says "King of Wallachia and Bulgaria"). Indeed, the Asen brothers, founders of the dynasty, were themselves Vlachs, i.e. modern Romanians. This is therefore not a purely ethnic Bulgarian state. It also came close to succeeding to the throne in Constantinople, though later overpowered by the Mongols, Serbia and, of course, the Ottomans.
John II Asen
1218-1241
Defeated & Captured Theodore Ducas of Epirus, 1230; Mongol invasion, 1242 Kaloman I Michael II Asen Kaloman II Constantine Tich Ivan Mytzes 1242-1246 1246-1257 1257-1258 1257-1277 1278-c.1264 1277-1279, d.1280
The principal setback to the Bulgarian state was the Mongol invasion of Ivalio 1242, which itself was almost an afterthought as the Mongols abandoned the conquests of Poland and Hungary in 1241 and were returning to 1279-1284?, Russia. The Chingnizids needed to go to Mongolia to elect a new Great John III Asen Khan. What followed for Bulgaria was a period of internal conflict, d.<1302 between members of the Asen dynasty and outsiders. Two unrelated Asens replaced by Terters usurpers, Constantine Tich and Ivaljo, figure in the table above. Another unrelated figure, however, Ivan Mytzes, becomes an Asen in-law and the father of the last Asen Emperor, John III. This is a confused period, with pretenders contending and dates uncertain. John III fled to the Mongols and then to Constantinople. He was succeeded in Bulgaria by his erstwhile minister, George Terter.
The list of Bulgarian rulers is from various Byzantine sources, including the only source of the genealogy here, which is the Erzhlende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europischen Geschichte, Volume II, Part 2, Europiche Kaiser-, Knigs- und Frstenhuser II Nord-, Ost- und Sdeuropa [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Part 2, Second Edition, 1997, pp.160-162]. Although John III lost Bulgaria, his descendants figured in affairs in Constantinople for some time. Since his granddaughter married the Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus, whose daughter Helena married the Emperor John V, all the subsequent Palaeologi are his descendants.
3. LATIN EMPERORS AT CONSTANTINOPLE Baldwin I of Flanders 1204-1205
Captured by Kalojan Asen, 1205
Henry of Flanders Peter de Courtenay Yolanda of Flanders Robert I de Courtenay John of Brienne
1206-1216
1217
1217-1219
1221-1228
1228-1237 1228-1261
Baldwin II
titular Emperor 1261-1273
The conquest of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade did not result in the establishment of the authority of the Latin Emperors over the whole of the previous Empire. Greek authority was maintained in three major locations, at Nicaea, at Trebizond, and in Epirus, and a couple of minor locations, at Rhodes, later to fall to Venice, and at the fortress of Monembasia in the Peloponnesus (Morea), which fell in 1248. All three major Greek rulers eventually proclaimed themselves emperors, which means that at one point four rulers were claiming the Imperial dignity within the old Empire -- not to mention the Bulgarian and Serbian Tsars who also wanted to inherit it. The Emperor at Nicaea was the one to return to Constantinople, but the Emperor at Trebizond was the last to fall to the Turks.
Besides the 3/8 of the whole retained by titular Venice, including Adrianople and Philip II Emperor 1273-1285 Gallipoli, the Latin Empire ended up included three significant feudal dependencies, all subjugated and titular Catherine de organized by the leader of the Fourth Empress Courtenay 1285-1307 Crusade, Boniface the Margrave of Montferrat: the Kingdom of titular Thessalonica (1204-1224), with Charles Emperor Boniface himself as king, the Duchy of of Valois 1301-1313 Athens (1205-1456), and the Principality of Achaea (1205-1432). titular Catherine Boniface was denied the Imperial throne Empress of Valois 1313-1346 by the Venetian votes, apparently because it was thought that he might make too strong an Emperor. titular Philip II Boniface himself was killed in 1207 and the Emperor Kings of Thessalonica of Tarento 1313-1331 Kingdom of Thessalonica turned out to be the most shortlived of the Crusader states in Romania, Boniface of titular 1204-1207 falling to Epirus. In 1311 the Duchy of Athens Montferrat Robert II Emperor was seized by the Catalan Company, which had 1346-1364 mutinied against the Palaeologi. The Principality 1207-1224, Demetrius of Achaea eventually got mixed up with the d.1230/9 Anjevians and finally was inherited, much too
Philip III
late, by the Palaeologi in 1432; but the Duchy of titular Athens never returned to the control of Greek Emperor 1364-1373 Romania. It fell to Meh.med II in 1456.
Thessalonica taken by Epirus, 1224
After the restoration of Greek rule in Constantinople, a claim to the Roman throne passed down through the descendants of Baldwin II. Charles of Anjou, who had his own designs on Romania, married a daughter to Baldwin's son Philip. Later, Charles' grandson Philip married the heiress, Catherine of Valois, of the claim. None of these claimants, however, ever had much of a chance of returning to Constantinople. Many of them, however, were also Princes of Achaea, where their succession and genealogy are given in detail.
The nimbus is not used for the Latin Emperors in the genealogy because, as Roman Catholics, they would have acknowledged Papal supremacy to a degree that the Orthodox Emperors in Constantinople never would. Latin Emperors could not be "Equal to the Apostles."
In the scramble for a Greek successor to the Angeli, Epirus was in a good position, from which considerable progress was made. Thessalonica was the second city of the Empire, and its capture reasonably prompted Theodore Ducas to proclaim himself Emperor. From there, however, Michael I Ducas 1204-1215 things only went down hill. Theodore was himself defeated and captured by the Bulgarians, which would add him to the number of Valerian and 1215-1230 Romanus IV if we considered him a proper Emperor of Romania. But the chance of that dimmed further when Theodore's successors were 1227-1230, Theodore Ducas defeated by Nicaea, reduced to despots, and then Thessalonica itself fell Emperor in Thessalonica, to Nicaea. d.c.1254 takes Thessalonica, 1224; Defeated & Captured by John II Asen, 1230 1230-1237, Regent in Thessalonica, d.1241 1237-1242, Emperor in Thessalonica Despot, 1242-1244 Defeated by John III Ducas Vatatzes, reduced to Despot, 1242 Demetrius 1244-1246
4. DESPOTS OF EPIRUS AND EMPERORS AT THESSALONICA
Manuel
John
Thessalonica falls to John III Ducas Vatatzes, 1246 Michael II 1231-1271
Granted title of Despot of Epirus by John III Ducas Vatatzes, 1249 Nicephorus I Thomas Nicholas Orsini John Orsini Nicephorus II 1271-1296 1296-1318 1318-1323 1323-1335 1335-1337, 1340, & 1355-1359 Epirus itself proved difficult for either Nicaea or the Palaeologi to subdue and rule, so the despots continued there for a while, continuing under some rulers unrelated to the Ducases. By the time Andronicus III was able to annex the territory, the Empire as a whole was too far gone
Epirus absorbed by Andronicus III, 1337, 1340 for it to have helped very much.
5. EMPERORS AT TREBIZOND Alexius I Comnenus Andronicus I Gidus John I Axuch Manuel I Andronicus II George John II Alexius II Andronicus III Manuel II Basil Irene Palaeologina 1204-1222 1222-1235 1235-1238 1238-1263 1263-1266 1266-1280 1280-1297 1297-1330 1330-1332 1332 1332-1340 1340-1341 A very poor excuse for an "empire," Trebizond spent much of its existence in vassalage to the Mongols and Turks who ruled the plateau behind it. It started, however, with an heir to the Comneni and a reasonable ambition of moving on to Constantinople. After realistic chances of that past, Trebizond ended up with the dubious honor of being the last of the Greek states to fall to the Ottomans, in 1461. Lists of the Emperors of Trebizond can be found in various Byzantine histories, but the genealogy here only comes from the Erzhlende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europischen Geschichte, Volume III, Europiche Kaiser-, Knigs- und Frstenhuser, Ergnzungsband [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Second Edition, 2001, pp.235-236].
Anna Comnena Michael John III Alexius III Manuel III Alexius IV John IV David
1341, 1341-1342 1341, 1344-1349 1342-1344 1349-1390 1390-1416 1416-1429 1429-1459 1459-1461 1354 AD
Trebizond falls to Meh.med II, 1461
In the genealogy of the Comneni of Trebizond, there are noteworthy marriages to Kings of Georgia. There is also the interesting episode of Irene, daughter of Andronicus III Palaeologus, briefly succeeding her husband Basil as ruling Empress. She was then succeeded by her sister-inlaw Anna. Most extraordinary is a marriage at the end of line. A daughter,
Theodora, of Emperor John IV married Uzun H.asan, a Khan of the White Sheep Turks (1457-1478), the very Khan who conquered the Black Sheep Turks in 1469 and created a regional state that stretched from Eastern Anatolia, where the White Sheep Turks originated, into Eastern Irn. This continued until the Safavids came to power in 1508.
6. LASCARIDS, EMPERORS AT NICAEA Constantine Lascaris Theodore I Lascaris 1204 1206-1222
John III Ducas 1222-1254 Vatatzes Theodore II John IV 1254-1258 1258-1261
The Greeks at Nicaea were perhaps the best placed to move on Constantinople, except that they were on the wrong side of the Bosporus. This was remedied, mainly by John Ducas Vatatzes, by defeating the Greek rivals at Thessalonica and creating a state that straddled Europe and Asia. This created the kind of stranglehold on Constantinople that the Turks would duplicate later. Constantinople was regained on a chance betrayal to the Nicaean general and Regent, Michael Palaeologus. Once in power in Constantinople, Michael disposed of the actual Nicaean heir, John IV. The Lascarids, who were actually mostly the family of John Ducas Vatatzes, thus only served to obtain the restoration of Greek Romania for the Palaeologi.
C. THE LAST DAYS, 1261-1453, 192 years 1. SERBIA Tichomir Stephan I Nemanja Great Prince, 1168-1169 1169-1196, d.1200
The Golden Age of Serbia. Independence from Romania and then the passing of the most vigorous days of Bulgaria meant an opportunity for a Serbian bid for the Imperium. This opportunity was seized by Stephan Dushan, who ended up with most of the western Balkans and was crowned Tsar of the Serbs and Romans by the autocephalous Serbian Patriarch whom he had just installed (1346) at Pec. His long reign, however, was
Serbia independent, 1180
1196-1217 Stephan II the First-Crowned Stephan III Radoslav King of Serbia, 1217-1228 1228-1234
not quite long enough, and his death set off the kind of internal dissentions that had ruined many another state in Romania.
Stephan IV Vladislav 1234-1243 Stephan Urosh I Stephan Dragutin Stephan Urosh II Milutin Stephan Urosh III Dechanski 1243-1276 1276-1282 1282-1321 1321-1331 1331-1345 Stephen Urosh IV Dushan Tsar of the Serbs and the Romans, Then, all too soon, the Ottomans arrived. Defeats in 1371 and 1389 crushed Serbia. The agony of the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, 1345-1355 the "Field of the Blackbirds," still echoes today in the fierceness of the attachment of modern Serbs for the area, now largely Stephen Urosh V 1355-1371 the Weak populated by Albanians. As it happened, the Sult.n Murd I died at Kosovo, but his son, Byezd the "Thunderbolt," was, if defeat by Murd I anything, even more vigorous than his father. In 1396 Byezd at Crnomen, 1371; destroyed a Crusade, led by the King of Hungary and future collapse of dynasty Emperor Sigismund, at Nicopolis (Nikopol). Not even Byezd's & authority defeat and capture by Tamerlane (1402) revived Serbian prospects. Prince, Stephan Lazar I 1371-1389 battle of Kosovo, "Field of the Blackbirds," defeat by Murd I, 1389 Stephan Lazar II Lazarevich Despot, 1389-1427 Lists of Serbian rulers can be found in various Byzantine histories, but the genealogy here only comes from the Erzhlende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europischen Geschichte, Volume II, Part 2, Europiche Kaiser-, Knigs- und Frstenhuser II Nord-, Ost- und Sdeuropa [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Part 2, Second Edition, 1997, pp.143-149].
Turkish vassal, 1396 George Brankovich 1427-1456
Lazar III Brankovich Helene Palaeologina
1456-1458 Regent, 1458-1459, d.1473
annexed by Turkey, 1459
The dynasty of Stephan Dushan is followed by two families of princes. Stephen Lazar and his son endured the Turkish defeat and conquest and were reduced to despots. They were followed by the Bronkoviches, father and son. The wife of Lazar III Brankovich, Helene, was a daughter of Thomas Palaeologus (d.1465), Despot of the Morea and brother of the last Roman Emperor, Constantine
XI. After the death of Lazar, Helene was Regent of Serbia until the Turkish annexation.
3. BULGARIA, TERTERS George I Terter 1280-1292, d.c.1304
The second Bulgarian dynasty of the period was always at a disadvantage, ground between the Mongols, Serbs, Hungary, and the Ottomans. Ottoman conquest and annexation came in the same year (1396) as the
Mongol vassal, 1285 Smilech Caka/Tshaka Theodore Svetoslav George II 1292-1295/8 1295/8-1298/9 1298/9-1322 1322-1323
SHISHMANS Michael III Shishman John IV Stephan 1323-1330 1330-1331
John V Alexander John Sracimir John VI Shishman
1331-1371 1355-1371, d.1396 1360-1393, d.1395
Sult.n Byezd's defeat of a Crusade, led by the King of Hungary and future Emperor Sigismund, at Nicopolis (Nikopol), where John Sracimir was killed.
Over time, the Turks clearly regarded Bulgaria as stategically more important than Serbia or the Romanian principalities, and no local autonomy was allowed at all until the Russo-Turkish War of 18761878 and the Congress of Berlin (1878) forced it. Even then Bulgaria was divided and full independence did not come until 1908. Meanwhile, a fair number of Bulgarians had converted to Islm. Since they were regarded as traitors by Christian Bulgarians, many of them migrated to Turkey, where they still live. The list of Bulgarian rulers is from various Byzantine sources, including the only source of the genealogy here, which is the Erzhlende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europischen Geschichte, Volume II, Part 2, Europiche Kaiser-, Knigs- und Frstenhuser II Nord-, Ost- und Sdeuropa [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Part 2, Second Edition, 1997, pp.162-163].
disintegration of state, 1385; Ottoman vassalage, 1387, 1388, Conquest, 1396
The many successors of the Seljuks in Anatolia are often called Family of Aydn Oghlu Muh.ammad Beg the oghullar or "sons." The Aydn Oghullar ("Sons of Aydin") are noteworthy because their seizure of Ephesus and Smyrna allowed for the development of a very troublesome Captures Ephesus, 1304 degree of sea power, provoking two leagues of western powers to help Romania suppress it. Muh.ammad Beg, 1308-1334 The second league succeeded in recapturing Mubriz ad-Dn Ghz the harbor and part of the city of Smyrna, though this only Umur I Beg, temporarily hampered the Begs. A noteworthy complication at 1334-1348 Bah' ad-Dn Ghz the time was the civil war in Romania between John V Palaeologus and John VI Cantacuzenus. Cantacuzenus cultivated Turkish allies, including the Ottoman Amr Orkhn and Umur I of Aydn. This was a disastrous error, since
4. BEGS (BEYS) OF AYDN
Captures Smyrna (I.zmir); naval defeat at Adramyttion, 1334; naval defeat by Venice & Romania, loss of harbor of Smyrna, 1344 Khid.r 's 1348-c.1360 c.1360-1390 Annexation by Byezd I, 1390; Restoration by Tmr, 1402 Msa Umur II Junayd 1402-1403 1402-1405 1405-1426
Ottoman troops were thus introduced into Europe. They stayed. The Beys of Aydn also illustrate the temporary setback suffered by the Ottomans. The defeat of Byezd I by Tamerlane led to the brief retablishment (1402-1426) of the Aydn Oghullar. This list is from Clifford Edmund Bosworth's The New Islamic Dynasties [Edinburgh University Press, 1996].
Annexation by Murd II, 1426
5. PALAEOLOGI Michael VIII Palaeologus 1259-1282
Prince of Achaea captured, 1259; Restoration of Greek rule in Constantinople, 1261; Laconia & Monembasia (soon Despotate of Morea) ceded as ransom for the Prince of Achaea, 1261; Genoese granted Galata, 1267; Anjevians defeated, 1281; the Sicilian Vespers, 30 March 1282 -- Sicily revolts against & massacres the French; end of Anjevian threat Andronicus II 1282-1328 Michael Palaeologus restores the Greeks to Constantinople, and for a time Romania acted as a Great Power again, fending off Charles of Anjou. But it was a precarious position. Michael himself sowed the seeds of disaster by confiscating land from the tax exempt akritai (sing. akrits), the landed frontier (kros) fighters of Bithynia. This weakened defenses that Andronicus II weakened further with military economies, failing to follow the maxim of Machiavelli that the first duty of a prince is war. Once the Ottomans
reduction of army & navy; Venetians mint Ducats after Roman debasement, 1284; defeat by Amir 'Osmn at Bapheus near Nicomedia, Ottoman conquest begins, 1302; Catalan Company hired, 1303, revolts, 1305; Ephesus lost to Beg of Aydn, 1304; Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, the Hospitalers, on Rhodes, 1308-1523; Prusa [Bursa] lost, 1326 Michael IX heir of Andronicus, 1295-1320 1321-1341
broke the Roman army in Bithynia (1302), they, and other Turks, quickly reduced Roman possessions in Asia to fragments, never to be recovered. Bithynia (Prusa, Nicaea, and Nicomedia) became the base of Ottoman power, with Prusa, as Bursa, the Ottoman capital.
Andronicus III
defeat by Orkhn, 1329; Nicaea [I. znik] lost, 1331; Nicomedia [I. zmid] lost, 1337; Epirus annexed, 1337, 1340 John V 1341-1376, 1379-1391
Umur I, Beg of Aydn & ally of John Cantacuzenus, defeated by Venice & Romania, looses harbor of Smyrna, 1344; Grand Duke of Moscow contributes money to repair St. Sophia, 1346 regent, 1341 1341-1354, abdicated In this period flags in the modern sense were just beginning to come into use; and there were 14th century banners that would have
John VI Cantacuzenus
Civil War, 1341-1347; Crown Jewels pawned to Venice, 1343; Bubonic Plague, 1347; revenue of Galata seven times that of Constantinople, 1348; Genoans from Galata burn Roman shipyard, 1348; War between Venice & Genoa, 1350-1355; Kallipolis [Gelibolu] lost, 1354, Ottoman foothold in Europe; John V visits Hungary, first Emperor to visit a foreign court, 1365; Adrianople [Edirne] lost, 1369; John goes to Rome & Venice, 13691371; Empire Vassal of Murd I 1376-1379; heir, 1381-1385
Andronicus IV
Thessalonica lost, 1387 Manuel Cantacuzenus, Despot of Morea Matthew Cantacuzenus, Despot of Morea Demetrius Cantacuzenus, Despot of Morea
1348-1380
1354-1383 1380-1383
1383 1390, flees to Byezd I; regent, 13991403
John VII
Philadelphia lost, 1390 Theodore I Palaeologus, Despot of Morea 1383-1407
evolved into a proper flag for Romania, given the chance. We find a field with a Cross, like many Crusader banners and flags, with the addition of curious devices, which look like images and mirror-images of something between the letter B, the letter E, and broken links of a chain. These are sometimes said to have already been used by Constantine I and have been variously interpreted. One possibility is that they are stylized forms of Crescent Moons, originally symbolic of the divine patroness of Byzantium, the goddess Artemis. The stylized forms have been inherited in the arms of Serbia, and crescents are used as a Serb national symbol, seen at left -- something that has probably become a sign of terror to non-Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. If it was the Crescent that was originally used in Constantinople, this may have been directly inherited by Turkey. A Crescent is now commonly taken as symbolic of Islm, but this may not antedate the Turkish flag. The star on the Turkish flag is sometimes said to be Romanian also, symbolizing the Virgin Mary, but it does not occur on the earliest Turkish flags. However, Whitney Smith [Flags Through the Ages and Across the World, McGraw-Hill, 1975] shows a flag identified only as "medieval Russian" that shows a cross with four crescents and four stars also (p. 174). The crescents are oriented differently, but this design seems too elaborate not to have Roman antecedents. The double headed Eagle is also a Romanian device, said to have been introduced by Michael VIII Palaeologus, with the two heads looking towards the Anatolian and European halves of the Empire, as the Emperor did from Constantinople. Or, Donald M. Nicol [Byzantium and Venice, a Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 249] says, it was adopted by Andronicus II to symbolize the division of authority with his grandson, Andronicus III -- though it far outlasted that particular division. Eagles were used by many to imply Roman antecedents, but the double headed eagle was adopted in particular by the Holy Roman Empire, by Imperial Russia, and by the Serbs. It also occurred on the flag used by George Castriota, or Skanderbeg, when he drove the Turks out of Albania, between 1443 and 1463. Thus, when Albania became independent from Turkey, Skanderbeg's flag was revived.
Manuel II
1391-1425
Russian Church stops mention of Emperor, 1392; Ottoman vassalage repudiated, 1394; seige of Constantinople, 1394-1402; Battle of Nicopolis, Sigismund of Hungary defeated by Byezd I, 1396; Emperor travels to Italy, France, England, 1400-1403; Thessalonica returned, 1403, ceded to Venice, 1423; Seige of Constantinople by Murad II, 1422 Theodore II Palaeologus, Despot of Morea John VIII
1407-1443 1425-1448
attends the Church Council at Ferrara & Florence, 1439-1440; Crusade of Varna, defeated, Vadislav of Hungary & Poland killed, 1444 Despot of Morea 14281449 1449-1453 Constantinople [I.stanbul] falls to Meh.med II, 1453 Thomas, Despot of Morea 1428-1460
Constantine XI Dragases
In the last days of Romania, as all else was being lost, one domain expanded. That was the Despotate of the Morea, the Mediaeval name of the Peloponnesus. The last part of this, the fortress of Monembasia, had fallen to the Latins in 1248. But then Monembasia and Laconia were returned in 1261 as ransom for William, Prince of Achaea, who had been captured in battle in 1259. In the western hills above the ancient city of Sparta, Mistra grew into a surprising center of art and learning. Indeed, one could even say that the Renaissance began there, since many of its scholars, with their books, fled the Turkish Conquest to Italy, which was ready for them. The Morea became a kind of Viceroyalty under the Cantacuzeni Despots. Under the Palaeologi, starting in 1383, the Despot (sometimes more than one) was usually a son or brother of the Emperor. The last Emperor, Constantine XI, began as a Despot of Morea. He very nearly acquired Athens in 1435. His brother, the last Despot, Thomas, married the Heiress of Achaea and came into possession of the Principality and all the Peloponnesus in 1432. By then there was little time left for further successes. The last thing left to Thomas by the Ottomans was, again, the fortress of Monembasia, which he turned over to the Pope in 1461. The Pope thus became, as Popes had long desired, the ruler of all Romania.
Principality of Achaea inherited, 1432; Mistra, Morea, falls to Meh. med II, 1460; last piece of Romania, the fortress of Monembasia, ceded to the Pope, 1461; daughter Zo marries Ivan III of Russia The Fall of Constantinople, on May 29, 1453, is one of the most formative, epochal, colorful, and dramatic episodes in world history. Because of all that it is a little puzzling that there has never been, to my knowledge, a Hollywood movie about the event. This may have been in great measure because of the scale of the location. The Theodosian Land Walls of Constantinople are 6.5 kilometers long, almost 4 miles. Since the ruins of the walls could not be used, and the whole length could not be built (as the whole Alamo was build by John Wayne for The Alamo), it would have been necessary to use models, which, with the older technology, would have looked very cheesy. Models now, however, can look much, much better -- the models for Lord of the Rings (2001) even came to be called "big-atures" instead of "miniatures" they were so large; and even better than that, shots can be done digitally. This would also work for the other problem, which would be showing the general situation of the city between the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, and the Golden Horn. A live shot of the modern buildings would not help. Now, however, the whole thing could be done digitally, or live shots could be digitalized and edited, to remove modern buildings and render mediaeval ones. This would also help with scenes in Sancta Sophia. The movie would have to show church services there, but my understanding is that these are not allowed in the modern building, even though it is now a secularized museum rather than the mosque it became at the Conquest (there is a small Islamic chapel, but not a Christian one). No problem. All we need is a photograph, and Industrial Light and Magic can put Constantine XI and the whole gang right into it with all the paraphernalia of the Greek Orthodox Church. Even so, it is questionable how interested Hollywood will ever be, even after Gladiator, and even when the legendary material, like the Virgin Mary retrieving her Icon, or the various versions of the death of Constantine, simply cry out for cinematic representation. With the present conflicts
involving Islm, some might consider the whole topic inflammatory; and it is very possible that Turkey would not allow location filming for such a movie. The surname Palaeologus survives today, but it is not clear that any modern Palaeologi are descendants of the Imperial family. In the genealogy, we see considerable intermarriage outside the Empire, even to Tsars of Bulgaria. The marriage of ZoSophia to Ivan III of Moscow is the one most filled with portent, but the last Russian Tsar to be their descendant was Theodore I (15841598). John Julius Norwich (Byzantium, The Decline and Fall, Knopf, 1996, pp.447448) notes that there is buried in St. Leonard's church in Landulph, Cornwall, England a "Theodore Paleologus" (d.1636) from Italy, who is said to have been a direct descendant of John, son of Thomas, Despot of the Morea. However, Thomas is not known to have had a son John, and so the claim of descent, regardless of any other
merits, is questionable. Theodore had a son Ferdinand, who died in Barbados in 1678. Ferdinand had a son "Theodorious," who returned to England and died in 1693, leaving a daughter, "Godscall," whose fate is unknown. What John Norwich seems to have missed is that there were undoubted lines of Palaeologi (Paleologhi) in Italy, descended from the Emperor Andronicus II, whose second wife was Yolanda, the Heiress of the Margraves of Montferrat. While Andronicus's eldest son succeeded in Constantinople, his son by Yolanda, Theodore, succeeded to Montferrat. The main line of the Palaeologi of Montferrat continued until the death of the Marchioness Margaret in 1556. But branch lines continued much longer, perhaps even to the 20th century. This is covered in the Erzhlende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europischen Geschichte, Volume II, Part 2, Europiche Kaiser-, Knigs- und Frstenhuser II Nord-, Ost- und Sdeuropa [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Part 2, Second Edition, 1997, pp.260-261], which, however, only indicates that the lines continue after the 16th century. The Theodore buried in Cornwall could very well have simply gotten confused about his genealogy. He might have been a genuine Paleologo from Italy. While there may or may not be surviving Imperial Palaeologi, Constantine XI lives on in legend. When the Turks had manifestly broken through and the Fall of the City imminent, the Emperor reportedly threw off the Imperial Regalia and disappeared into the thick of the fight. There is no doubt that he died. A body was later identified and a head displayed, but some doubt remains about the identification. A story arose that Constantine sleeps under the Golden Gate (like Barbarossa under the Kyffhuser), or that he would reenter the City through that Gate. Generations of Turkish government took these stories with sufficient seriousness that the Golden Gate remains bricked up to this very day.
6. ROMANIANS
"Wallach," as in "Wallachia," is a
WALLACHIA Tihomir Ioan Basarab I c.1290-1310 MOLDAVIA Voivode, Prince 1317-1352 Voivode, Prince 1352-1353 1354-1358 1359 Prince 1359-1365 1365-1373 1373-1375 1375-1391
Dragosh Sas Balc Bogdan I the Founder Latcu Vladislav I Vlaicu Radu I Dan I Mircea the Old 1364-1377 Costea 1377-1383 1383-1386 1386-1418 Stephen I Vlad I Michael I Dan II Radu II the Poor Alexander I Vlad II Dracul part, 1394-1397 1418-1420 1420-1431 1421, 1423, & 1447 1431-1436 1436-1442, 1443, 1447 Stephen II Ilias, Elias Ologul (Iuga) Alexander the Good Petru I al Mushatei Roman I
Nicholas Alexander
1352-1364
cognate of the English words "Welsh" and "Wales." This seems to have been a German word for "Romans," left by the Goths in the Balkans. It also turns up as the word "Vlach," a Slavic name for the Romance language, and its speakers, used in the Balkans. The Latin form "Blachus" and the Greek "Vlakhos" also occur. In modern parlance, the convention for some time was that Romance speakers south of the Danube spoke "Vlach" and those north of the Danube spoke "Romanian." "Romanian" is now also coming to be used for the languages (Arumanian, etc.) south of the Danube also, with "DacoRomanian" used to specific the north of the Danuabe language.
The Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia are the first Vlach/ Romanian states that we see north of the Danube. They appear in the 1391-1394 period after incursions from 1394-1399 nomadic Steppe empires ceased. They were never subject to the Roman Emperors in 1399-1400 Constantinople, and they occupied territories that had been abandoned by the Roman Empire 1400-1432 in the Third Century, or never occupied by it in the first place. The arrival of the Turks subjected them to Ottoman suzerainty, but 1432-1433, this was of varying rigor. The 1435-1442 lines of Princes continued, but by 1711 the Sult.n began to sell the seats to Greek tax farmers, a destructive practice that 1433-1447 continued until 1821. The most famous person in these
Mircea
1442
Petru II
Basarab II
1442-1443 Prince of Transylvania, 1441-1456
Roman II
Iancu de Hunedoara (Jnos Hunyadi)
Regent of Hungary, 1446-1456 1447
Ciubar
Vladslav II
1447-1448, 1448-1456
Alexandrel
Bogdan II Vlad III Tepesh, the Impaler Radu I cel Frumos Basarab Laiota 1448, 1456-1462, 1476 1462-1475 1473, 1474-1475, 1476-1477 1477-1481, 1481-1482 1481, 1482-1495 1495-1508 1508-1509, d.1510 1509-1510 Bodgan III the Blind
Petru Aron
lines is certainly Prince Vlad the 1444-1445, Impaler of Wallachia. In legend 1447, and horror, one might almost say 1448-1449 romance, this cruel man has 1447-1448 grown into the paradigmatic vampire, Count Dracula, though his home has been slightly relocated, from Wallachia to Transylvania and the Carpathian Mountains (between Transylvania 1448-1449 and Moldavia). Until recently, I was under the impression that Prince Vlad Dracul (1436-1442, 1443, 1447) was Vlad the Impaler. However, a Romanian correspondent has pointed out 1449, that Prince Vlad the Impaler was 1452-1454, not Vlad Dracul but instead 1455 Prince Vlad T,epesh (1448, 14561462, 1476, also "Vlad 1449-1451 Draculea"), his son. This seems to be the case, and I have corrected 1451-1452, the table accordingly. This 1454-1455, correspondent also pointed out 1455-1457, the interesting career of Iancu de d.1469 Hunedoara (Jnos Hunyadi) as Prince of Transylvania and Regent of Hungary, for which links have been installed. The title of these rulers was Voivode, a word that we even find in Bram Stoker (Dracula, Penguin Books, 1897, 1993, p.309). This term no longer appears in convenient Romanian or Hungarian dictionaries, for any of its meanings (c.f. NTC's Romanian and English Dictonary, Andre Bantas, NTC Publishing Group, 1995; Hippocrene Concise Dictionary, Hungarian, Hungarian-English, English-Hungarian, Gza Takcs, Hippocrene Books, 1996; or
Stephen III the Great
1457-1504
Basarab Tepelush Vlad Calugarul Radu II cel Mare, the Great Mihnea cel Rau Mircea
1504-1517
Vlad cel Tinar Neagoe Basarab Teodosie Vlad (Dragomir Calugarul) Radu III de la Afumati
1510-1512 1512-1521 1521 1521, d.1522 1522-1523, 1524, 1524-1525, 1525-1529 1523, 1524, 1525 1523-1524 1529-1530 1530-1532 1532-1535 1535-1545 1545-1552, 1553-1554, 1558-1559 1552-1553 Petru Raresh 1527-1538, 1541-1546 Shtefanita 1517-1527
Hippocrene Standard Dictionary, English-Hungarian Dictionary, T. Magay & L. Kiss, Hippocrene Books, 1995). Those meanings began with "duke" or "prince" and ultimately declined to merely "governor," which would have been appropriate to Wallachia or Moldavia under the Turks. This word is actually of Slavic origin, and is thus discussed under Eastern Europe. The Vlach language of the Principalities, not a written language in the Middle Ages, came to be written in the Cyrillic alphabet. The unified country itself became first "Roumania," later further Latinized into "Romnia," and soon the Cyrillic alphabet was traded in for the Latin alphabet, as the Roman roots of the people were increasingly emphacized. In contrast to the original Romania, i.e. the Roman Empire, the northof-the-Danube state might usefully be characterized as "Lesser Romania," on analogy to "Lesser Armenia" in the Taurus; but this would probably be considered insulting by modern Romanians. Perhaps "Later Romania" would be better, like the Later Han Dynasty -- making the Empire into the "Former Romania," like the Former Han Dynasty. The issue of Romnia and the Vlach language and people is discussed further in "The Vlach Connection and Further Reflections on Roman
Valdislav III Radu IV Badica Moise Vlad necatul Vlad Vintila Radu Paisie Mircea Ciobanul
Ottoman Conquest, 1538 Ilias, Elias Stephen IV Ioan Joldea Alexandru Lapushneanu 1546-1551, 1562 1551-1552 1552 1552-1561, 1564-1568, 1568
Radu Ilie Patrascu cel Bun (the Kind) Petru cel Tinar Alexander II
Despot Voda (Iacob Basilikos 1561-1563 Heraklides/Eraclid) Sephen Tomsha Bogdan Laprushneanu Ion Voda (John the Terrible) 1563-1564 1568-1572 1572-1574
1554-1557 1559-1568, d.1569 1568-1574, 1574-1577
Vintila
1574
Petru Schiopul (the Lame)
Mihnea Turcitul
1577-1583, 1585-1591, d.1601 1583-1585, d.1590 1591-1592
Ioan Potcoava
Petru Cercel Stephen Surdul
Iancu Sasul Aron the Terrible Stefan Razvan
Alexander cel Rau
1592-1593 Ieremia Moghila
1593-1601 Radu VII (IV) Serban
Michael II the Brave 1601-1611
History." 1574-1577, 1578-1579, 1582-1591, The list of Princes here was originally taken from Kingdoms 1594 of Europe, by Gene Gurney [Crown Publishers, New York, 1982]. Gurney left many gaps, 1577 but it was a long time before I could do better. Now I have updated the list from the 1579-1582 Regentenlisten und Stammtafeln zur Geschichte Europas, by 1592-1595, Michael F. Feldkamp [Philipp d.1597 Reclam, Stuttgart, 2002, pp.142144 & 259-261]. Feldkamp gives 1595 very detailed information but unfortunately only until 1601. 1595-1600 Subsequent Princes are thus only from Gurney. 1600, d.1601
Ottoman Control, 1600
Ottoman Control, 1611; Lines of Princes Continued
Rome and Romania is continued in The Ottoman Sultans, 1290-1924 AD, Successors of Rome: Germania, 395-774, Successors of Rome: Francia, 447-present, Successors of Rome: The Periphery of Francia, and Successors of Rome: Russia, 862-present.
Philosophy of History Home Page

Copyright (c) 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved
Rome and Romania, 27 BC-1453 AD, Note
Sancta Sophia is Latin for "Saint Sophia" or, since sopha is Greek for "wisdom," "Sacred Wisdom." This is not the form of the name usually seen. Justinian spoke Latin, but in time Greek became the Court language at Constantinople. In Greek the Church was Hgia Sopha, which locally would have been the name used from the beginning. As Mediaeval Greek developed, however, the "h" ceased to be pronounced and the "g" softened into a "y." This later pronunciation is even preserved in the Turkish name of the Church, Aya Sofya. For many years, the version I seem to remember seeing was Santa Sophia, which would have to be Italian. Because of the later Italian influence in Romania, this version of the name certainly would have been used. Or, I may have just been seeing "St. Sophia" and thought of it as Santa because of living amid all the Spanish place names in California, where sancta has also become santa (e.g. Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, Santa Cruz, etc.). Hit "Back" Button to Return to Text

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Rome and Romania, 27 BC-1453 AD

ROME AND ROMANIA, 27 BC-1453 AD

Rome and Romania, 27 BC-1453 AD

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Macedonia, 1991-present I 1999, Ethnic Cleansing Armenia & Georgia, 1991-present

I. FIRST EMPIRE, "ROME," 27 BC-284, 310 years

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36-51 c.52-c.54 Arsacids

Tiridates/Trdat I Tigranes VI of Cappadocia Axidares Parthamasiris

51-60, 63-100 60-62 c.110 113-114

Kidnapped by Shapur II, 350 Arsaces/Arshak II Artashes III 350-367 d.428

No less that four foreign

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The success of the great struggle of the Maccabees to free the

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Hasmoneans Judas Maccabaeus 167-161

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Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, 79; Colosseum dedicated, 80 Domitian 81-96

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B. CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY, 235-284, 49 Years

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Withdrawl from Dacia, 271

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Tacitus Probus Carus

Numerian 282-283 Carinus

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A. "DOMINATE," 284-379, 95 years

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History - The Roman Empire & Byzantium

History - The Roman Empire & Byzantium