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ANTH 489
Romans, Arabs and Vikings.
Seafaring in the Mediterranean during the Early Christian Era.
Class 9: From Theodosius to Heraclius (379-641 AD)
Theodosius I (AD 379-395)
Roman emperor of the East (379–95) and emperor of the West (94–95).
By 381 the Byzantines had achieved an advantageous peace, permitting the Ostrogoths to
settle in Pannonia and the Visigoths in Northern Thrace. In return he secured their services as
soldiers.
In 394 Theodosius I named his son Arcadius as his co-emperor in the East.
Theodosius died the following year, and the Roman Empire remained divided into West and
East. His reign is notable for its prominence in the history of the Christian Church. Baptized
in 380, Theodosius soon afterward issued an edict condemning Arianism and making “belief
in the Trinity the test of orthodoxy;”
His persecutions practically extinguished Arianism and paganism within the empire.
More Christians died in quarrels between Christians than in persecutions by pagans, Muslims,
etc.
He also imposed a crushing burden of taxation, to fight the Germans.
TIMELINE
378-395: Theodosius I the Great
395-408: Arcadius
408-450: Theodosius II (son of Arcadius)
450: Pulcheria (sister of Theodosius II)
450-457: Marcian (soldier; married Pulcheria after Theodosius's
death)
457-474 – Leo I
474 – Leo II
Decline of Rome
On August 24, 410, led by Alaric, the Goths entered Rome.
In AD 455 Vandals took Carthage. Making it a naval base, they sacked Rome.
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With the destruction of the Pax Romana the medieval west became a splintered world of tiny
cells separated by forests, moors, and wastes.
By the beginning of the 5th century Orosius (c. AD 385-420) had written: “in the middle of
the debris of the great cities, only scattered groups of wretched peoples, witnesses to past
calamities, still attest to us the names of an earlier age.”
Cities were targets of the invaders, who destroyed, ruined, impoverished, isolated, and
reduced them.
City populations fed themselves through imports and fell victims of the decline on trading
commodities.
Lack of coins left the townsfolk without buying power. Cities moved (took refuge) near
places of food production.
The rich fled to their lands and the poor followed them, becoming close to rural slaves.
Roads declined and most transports were done on river barges.
Cities on road intersections declined. Cities on rivers developed and grew.
One very important consequence of this and an important social aspect of the Middle Ages is
a professional and social compartmentalization: “like father like son.”
Late Roman emperors had already made certain trades hereditary and encouraged landlords to
attach the farmers to the land as slaves were becoming scarce.
The result was a stratified society, boxed off horizontally and vertically.
The total number of barbarians never exceeded 5% of the total population on the Roman west.
Preserving identity meant that in the same town people would be judged according to the law
of his ethnic group.
The church became the social glue and the only force against parochialism.
Threefold barbarism:
The invader’s;
The declining Roman’s;
The local barbarism, buried under the Roman civilization.
Roads, buildings, bridges, warehouses, workshops, irrigation systems and cultivated areas fell
in decay.
Treasures were lost, old monuments were used as quarries.
This weakened, starved, and impoverished world fell to bubonic plagues in AD 543 (Italy,
Spain, and Gaul).
The 7th century was an all time low.
But there was a small period of expansion and reorganization during the 6th century…
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TIMELINE
474 – Leo II
474-491 - Zeno the Isaurian
491-518 – Anastasius I
518-527 – Justin I
527-565 – Justinian
Justinian (AD 527-565)
Paganism lost its struggle to survive, but the schism in Christianity between the Monophysite
east and the Chalcedonian west became insurmountable.
This was the last time that the Roman Empire went on the offensive with success. Africa and
Italy were recovered, and a foothold was established in Spain. When Justinian died, the
frontiers were still intact although the Balkans had been devastated by a series of raids and
the Italian economy was in ruins.
His extensive building program has left us the most celebrated example of Byzantine
architecture that still survives: Hagia Sophia
TIMELINE
527-565 – Justinian
565-578 – Justin II
578-582 – Tiberius II
582-602 – Maurice
602-610 – Phocas
610-641 - Heraclius
With the death of Justinian his nephew Justin II became emperor 565-578.
His reign is marked by the loss of most of the Italian territories conquered by Justinian,
invaded by the Lombards.
Ignoring his uncle's policies, he refused to pay tributes to his border enemies and was invaded
by the Avars (in the North) and the Sassanids (to the East).
In 574 he reportedly lost his mind and decided to abdicate. Leaving the empire to one of his
generals, Tiberius, who ruled with Justin’s wife Sophia until his death in 578.
In 578 Tiberius took the throne as Tiberius II (578-582) and ruled until his death.
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Although it was difficult to hold the empire against all the aggressions in all the frontiers,
Tiberius made peace with the Visigoths in Iberia and the Berbers in the North of Africa.
When he died, however, the problems in the Persian frontier were pressing.
He was succeeded by Maurice, his adopted son.
Maurice (582-602) ruled for 20 years and reorganized the empire, trying to deal as best as
possible, with the frontier problems.
He organized his dominions in Italy and Africa as almost independent provinces (exarchates)
ruled by military governors (exarchs).
When he died the court still spoke Latin, and his court perceived itself as Roman.
He was succeeded by Phocas, a military leader that usurped the throne upon his death.
Phocas reigned 8 years (602-610) and was deposed by Heraclius.
Heraclius (AD 610-641)
Deposed emperor Phocas in 610. In 627 defeated the Sassanid king Chosroes II (k. 590-628),
captured Jerusalem and took the Holy Cross away.
When Heraclius took power, the Empire was in a desperate situation. Phocas' revolt against
Maurice had stripped the Danube frontier of troops, leaving the most of the Balkans at the
mercy of the Avars.
Maurice had restored Chosroes II of the Sassanid Empire to his throne and they had remained
allies.
Using the death of his ally Maurice as an excuse, the Sassanid king launched a war against
the Byzantines and demanded them to accept as emperor a man in his court who claimed to
be Maurice's son Theodosius.
Phocas did not manage to keep the Sassanid army at bay and the empire began to crumble.
Heraclius usurpation of the throne resulted in civil war and the Sassanids invaded the Middle
East, took Damascus in 613 and Jerusalem in 614, capturing the Holy Cross.
In 621 Heraclius left Constantinople defended and took an army East to fight Chosroes II and
restore the eastern borders. Chosroes II was defeated in 627 (Battle of Nineveh) and in 630
Heraclius marched bear feet to Jerusalem and restored the True Cross to the Church of the
Holy Sepulcher.
The True Cross had allegedly been found, through a miracle, by empress Helena, the mother
of emperor Constantine, sometime between AD 312 and 330.
After his victory against the Persians Heraclius fell hill. The Arabs, united through
conversion to a new faith (Islam) crushed his powerful army in 636 (Battle of Yarmuk) and
conquered Syria and Palestine.
By 640, when Heraclius died, Egypt had also fallen to the Muslim Empire.
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Heraclius Hellenized the empire, replaced Latin with Greek in court, and is sometimes
credited with being the first Byzantine emperor.
(The Byzantines always called themselves Romans: Byzantine is an expression that was
created in the 16th century after the early name of Constantinople (Byzantium).
History has celebrated Heraclius as the restorer of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem and historians
have perhaps sometimes inflated his importance. It was not Heraclius that created the later
Thematic System of defense, although he kept the exarchates created by Maurice.
After Heraclius died, in AD 640, he was succeeded by one of his sons, Constantine III, who
died 4 months later, and another of his sons, Heraklonas, who was deposed and exiled after
having his nose cut of by a general named Valentinus.
The new emperor, Constans II, ruled until 668.
Next Class we will talk about
roads, canals, and the supply of the Roman armies
from the end of the Roman Empire to the 7th century.
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