Procopius

One of the chief sources of the Gothic Wars and of 6th century Byzantine history is Procopius of Caesarea (c.500 - c.565), a Greek scholar and historian from Palestine. Besides writing Words on the Wars, he also wrote something now called Secret History because it contained anecdotes dotes that would be dangerous to him if published in the lifetime of his subjects, and On Buildings, a book about Emperor Justinian's public works.

Justinian came to the throne in 527, and in that same year Preocopius became the legal advisor to Justinian's chief military commander, Belisarius. Procopius followed Belisarius through his various campaigns, both losses and victories, in places as varied as the banks of the Euphrates, Constantinople (where Belisarius suppressed riots with mass executions in the Hippodrome), the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa, and the wars in Italy to re-unite the Western Roman Empire with the Eastern.

Historian Edward Gibbon claimed that Procopius "successively composed the  history, the panegyric, and the satire of his own times." He both admired and criticized Belisarius and Justinian.

Procopius also gives us a firt=st-hand account of the Plague of Justinian, living through its first appearance and more:

During these times there was a pestilence by which the whole human race came near to being annihilated. Now in the case of all other scourges sent from heaven some explanation of a cause might be given by daring men, such as the many theories propounded by those who are clever in these matters; for they love to conjure up causes which are absolutely incomprehensible to man, and to fabricate outlandish theories of natural philosophy knowing well that they are saying nothing sound but considering it sufficient for them, if they completely deceive by their argument some of those whom they meet and persuade them to their view. But for this calamity it is quite impossible either to express in words or to conceive in thought any explanation, except indeed to refer it to God. For it did not come in a part of the world nor upon certain men, nor did it confine itself to any season of the year, so that from such circumstances it might be possible to find subtle explanations of a cause, but it embraced the entire world, and blighted the lives of all men, though differing from one another in the most marked degree, respecting neither sex nor age.

He offers us details that seem unlikely:

Apparitions of supernatural beings in human guise of every description were seen by many persons, and those who encountered them thought that they were struck by the man they had met in this or that part of the body, as it havened, and immediately upon seeing this apparition they were seized also by the disease. Now at first those who met these creatures tried to turn them aside by uttering the holiest of names and exorcising them in other ways as well as each one could, but they accomplished absolutely nothing, for even in the sanctuaries where the most of them fled for refuge they were dying constantly.

Tomorrow we'll look at his description of the symptoms.

Describing the Plague

There were several people writing during the time of the Justinian Plague (540s CE). One was Evagrius Scholasticus (c.536 - 594), a lawyer born in Syria who wrote an enormous history of the Church. In his lifetime he saw the plague return several times:

I will also describe the circumstances of the pestilence which commenced at that period, and has now prevailed and extended over the whole world for fifty-two years; a circumstance such as has never before been recorded. Two years after the capture of Antioch by the Persians, a pestilence broke out, in some respects similar to that described by Thucydides, in others widely different. It took its rise from Aethiopia, as is now reported, and made a circuit of the whole world in succession, leaving, as I suppose, no part of the human race unvisited by the disease.

Evagrius himself caught the plague and survived, but the people around him were not so lucky:

Thus it happened in my own case ...  at the commencement of this calamity I was seized with what are termed buboes, while still a school-boy, and lost by its recurrence at different times several of my children, my wife, and many of my kin, as well as of my domestic and country servants; .... Thus, not quite two years before my writing this, being now in the fifty-eighth year of my age, on its fourth visit to Antioch, at the expiration of the fourth indiction from its commencement, I lost a daughter and her son, besides those who had died previously.

His history would be incomplete if he did not share a description of the disease's effects:

The plague was a complication of diseases: for, in some cases, commencing in the head, and rendering the eyes bloody and the face swollen, it descended into the throat, and then destroyed the patient. In others, there was a flux of the bowels. In others buboes were formed, followed by violent fever, and the sufferers died at the end of two or three days, equally in possession, with the healthy, of their mental and bodily powers. Others died in a state of delirium, and some by the breaking out of carbuncles. Cases occurred where persons, who had been attacked once and twice and had recovered, died by a subsequent seizure.

The spread of the disease was unpredictable, even for those who wanted to contract it:

The ways in which the disease was communicated were various and unaccountable: for some perished by merely living with the infected, others by only touching them, others by having entered their chamber, others by frequenting public places. Some, having fled from the infected cities, escaped themselves, but imparted the disease to the healthy. Some were altogether free from contagion, though they had associated with many who were afflicted, and had touched many not only in their sickness but also when dead. Some, too, who were desirous of death, on account of the utter loss of their children and friends, and with this view placed themselves as much as possible in contact with the diseased, were nevertheless not infected; as if the pestilence struggled against their purpose.

One of the most detailed accounts came from Procopius, who was an adult when the plague first arrived. We'll take a look at him and it tomorrow.

The Plague of Justinian

Long, long ago I made a brief mention of the Plague of Justinian, and I've made many posts dealing with the Bubonic Plague, the Black Death, and Yersinia pestis. Researchers looking at ancient DNA from victims confirmed that what struck the Eastern Roman Empire during the reign of Justinian was an earlier version of the same plague, eight centuries before its most famous appearance in Europe.

Procopius mentions it in 541, writing that it started at Pelusium, a busy port just east of the Nile delta. Contemporary writers claimed it came to Constantinople on grain ships from Egypt that carried rats. (Egypt was a large exporter of grain to the Roman Empire.) Justinian himself became ill early on, but recovered. 

Procopius claimed that at its height, the plague was killing 10,000 per day; modern scholars agree that it may have been as high as 5,000 per day at its peak. This is an exaggeration, but the following from his Anecdota (also called "Secret History") may not have been:

When pestilence swept through the whole known world and notably the Roman Empire, wiping out most of the farming community and of necessity leaving a trail of desolation in its wake, Justinian showed no mercy towards the ruined freeholders. Even then, he did not refrain from demanding the annual tax, not only the amount at which he assessed each individual, but also the amount for which his deceased neighbors were liable.

(Procopius was not always kind in his assessment of Justinian or the people he kept around him.)

The plague had results that we have seen before: farmers died, grain prices rose. Laborers took advantage of the shortage of workers and demanded higher wages.

Justinian passed laws trying to keep the economy working. In March 542 Justinian wrote a law to prop up the banks, writing that this was amid the "encircling presence of death" that had "spread to every region." In 544 he imposed price and wage controls, writing that the "chastening which has been sent by God’s goodness’ should have made workers ‘better people’ but instead ‘they have turned to avarice." Gold coins were still minted at this time, but they were made with less gold than previously.

Tomorrow I'll share some first-hand accounts of some who lived through it.

Emperor Belisarius

For the sake of ending the Byzantine invasion of Italy to conquer the Ostrogoths and unify the old Western Roman Empire with the Eastern Byzantine Empire, King Vitiges of the Ostrogoths agreed to terms with General Belisarius.

The Goths at Ravenna had little choice: they were running out of supplie. A fire destroyed the granaries inside Ravenna. This may have been sheer accident, but Procopius offers two theories: Vitiges' queen, Matasuntha, may have caused it herself, angry at her forced marriage to Vitiges, or citizens were bribed by Belisarius to cause Ravenna's fall. (There's no evidence for either conspiracy.) Moreover, once of Belisarius' commanders seized grain supply ships headed toward Ravenna and diverted them to Belisarius' troops.

The Byzantine navy was preventing any supplies from reaching Ravenna along the Adriatic coast. Belisarius had succeeded in capturing major towns in northern Italy, so no relief for Ravenna was forthcoming.

Emissaries from Emperor Justinian arrived to be part of the negotiations, with orders to speed up a resolution (the Persians were massing on the Byzantines' eastern front). They were willing to accept an offer made by Vitiges a couple years earlier: allow the Goths to keep the extreme northern parts of Italy and take some treasure as tribute.

Belisarius, however, wanted a complete victory, and refused to sign the treaty. Vitiges worried that there was something wrong with the arrangement and became suspicious. The dragging out of a resolution made the Goths start to question Vitiges' leadership. A plan was formed that seemed acceptable to almost all: all fighting would cease and Ravenna would be opened to the invaders if Belisarius—whom the Goths had come to respect as a war leader and a person—would accept the throne of the Ostrogoths himself.

Everyone agreed to the plan, but Belisarius said he would not accept the rule unless he could do so in the presence of all the Goth nobles. Belisarius sent any of his commanders who were likely to object to this plan in different directions to secure other parts of the country. He also sent ships to bring grain to Ravenna to feed the citizens, further endearing them to the idea of his rule.

Ravenna opened its gates to Belisarius and the Byzantine force in May 340. With the Byzantines inside the gates, and no chance of the Goths to defend Ravenna, Belisarius reneged on the deal, refused the crown offered to him (see illustration), and claimed Ravenna as part of the Byzantine Empire.

That summer, Belisarius returned to Constantinople with Vitiges as hostage and the treasury of Ravenna. Justinian, because of the rumors of Belisarius almost accepting the crown, did not grant his general a parade in his honor, which would have been the typical reward for a successful campaign.

Still, things were looking up for Justinian: Italy was under his rule, and the army was free to go to the eastern front and brace for Persian attack. Then, in 541, an uncontrollable problem struck, and ran through the empire for years.

Tomorrow we'll learn about the Plague of Justinian.

The Siege of Ravenna

Ravenna, in the far north coast of Italy on the Adriatic, was the capital city of the Ostrogoths. Capturing it could bring the Gothic Wars to a happy conclusion for the Byzantines, whose emperor, Justinian, wanted to reunite the Western and Eastern halves of the old Roman Empire, with him as the ruler.

General Belisarius also needed a victory, especially after the disaster in Mediolanum (Milan). At least that outcome caused the recall of General Narses to Constantinople, so Belisarius no longer had an influential man disagreeing with strategy and dividing the army's loyalty.

Two important cities on the way to Ravenna, Fiesole and Auximus, had to be dealt with first, lest they become a source of Gothic resistance behind the Byzantines besieging Ravenna. Divisions were dispatched, and each town fell in about seven months due to lack of supplies.

It was late 539, and winter was setting in, but Belisarius did not want to wait for better weather that would be months away. Also, since Franks had arrived across the Alps to support the Goths at the request of King Vitiges, Belisarius wanted to act fast before they could come south from Mediolanum.

The River Po formed one side of Ravenna's defenses, the Adriatic another. Belisarius sent men along the Po to prevent supplies coming to Ravenna from north or south. The Po was at unseasonable low levels, preventing some ships from moving. Belisarius' man captured grain ships, which he sent to Belisarius for feeding the troops once the river levels were high enough.

The Frankish King Theudebert offered to help King Vitiges in exchange for part of Italy to rule. Belisarius learned of this offer, and sent his own messengers to Vitiges to remind him that Theudebert had helped Vitiges during the Siege of Mediolanum but had then betrayed Vitiges and started attacking northern Italy with an eye to acquiring territory for himself.

Vitiges decided to open negotiations with Belisarius. (The illustration shows the two men: Belisarius on the left from a mosaic in a church in Ravenna, Vitiges from the Nuremberg Chronicle.)

In Constantinople, however, a situation had arisen that made Justinian desperate to resolve the conquest of Italy: threats from the Persians to the east were motivating him to bring Belisarius and the army back.  Fortunately, Vitiges was not seen by his people as a great war leader, and they supported the idea of peace with Constantinople. The terms of that peace, the secret modification made between the Goths and Belisarius, the "betrayal" by Belisarius, and the elimination of Vitiges, will all be looked at tomorrow.

John and Narses

I thought we'd elaborate a little on the conflict mentioned yesterday about the taking of Ariminum (modern Rimini) by a Byzantine force under a general called John the Sanguinary. Emperor Justinian I was invading Italy to take control of the Western Roman Empire from the Ostrogoths, and John was part of that plan.

Originally tasked by Justinian to bring supplies to Rome, where General Belisarius was surrounded by the forces of King Vitiges, John decided to raid other Ostrogothic territory and capture Ariminum, close to the Gothic capital of Ravenna. That action caused Vitiges to pull his army away from Rome and move back north to protect Ravenna and re-capture Ariminum. Belisarius sent a message to John to pull the army away from Ariminum, but John decided to stay and hold the town.

This meant John and his army were now under siege. A gathering of Byzantine commanders discussed the situation. There was some discussion that John should be taught a lesson for insubordination. Into this discussion came General Narses, who arrived with Byzantine reinforcements.

Narses, at one time Justinian's chamberlain, was considered just as good a general as Belisarius. He argued that a defeat of John by the Goths would embolden them and demoralize the Byzantines. Belisarius created a plan (see illustration) that would give Vitiges an escape route rather than trying to defeat him in battle. As Belisarius' forces approached and camped, they would light far more campfires than needed to give the impression of superior numbers.

The plan worked, Vitiges withdrew the Goth army to Ravenna, and John and Ariminum were saved. John refused to show gratitude to Belisarius, however, and gave credit for the victory to Narses. Belisarius called a meeting of officers to caution that the Goths still were in command of a larger army than the Byzantines. Belisarius wanted a slower approach, securing towns that were favorable to Byzantium.

Narses argued for an attack on Ravenna itself. Opinions and sentiment about leadership were becoming divided, but Belisarius held a trump card. He had a document from Justinian, which he revealed, that stated:

We have not sent our steward Narses to Italy in order to command the army; for we wish Belisarius alone to command the whole army in whatever manner seems to him to be best, and it is the duty of all of you to follow him in the interest of our state.

Narses replied that Belisarius' plan was not, in fact, "in the interests of the state" and Narses would not accept that plan.

The plan to re-assert imperial control over Italy and reunite the Roman Empire could start falling apart. Let's see how these conflicts played out, starting tomorrow.

The Gothic Wars

Whatever the catalyst was—murder of his friend Amalasuintha, or just a desire to avenge Rome and Romans against the Goths—Byzantine Emperor Justinian I decided it was time to re-assert control over the western provinces of the once-mighty Roman Empire.

Justinian had recently recovered much of North Africa from the Vandals. That military action in 533 had been swift under his general Belisarius, and he hoped for a similar outcome in Italy. He also prepared by sending gifts of gold to the Frankish rulers, hoping they would not interfere.

Justinian sent Belisarius to Sicily. He also sent Mundus to the Gothic province of Dalmatia. Mundus was a Gothic military commander who had been allied with Theodoric the Great. After Theodoric's death he allied himself with the Byzantine Empire. Mundus was mortally wounded when a large Gothic army arrived in Dalmatia. Theodahad, the current ruler of the Ostrogoths in Italy, emboldened by this victory, imprisoned the Byzantine ambassadors. Justinian sent a new leader and army that did manage to conquer Dalmatia. The Gothic army then went from Dalmatia to Italy.

Belisarius had landed with an army and navy in Sicily in 535. The conquest of Sicily was quick and easy, and Belisarius was ready to cross to Italy. Theodohad sent an offer to Justinian: have Sicily, recognize me as the ruler in Italy, and later you can have Italy.

Belisarius made good progress, heading northward and taking Naples after only three weeks, then Rome, entering through the Porta Asinaria (see illustration). Theodahad's inability to stem this tide angered his people, who deposed him and made Vitiges king in 536. Vitiges abandoned Rome for the Gothic capital of Ravenna, married Amalasuintha's daughter Matasuntha to tie himself more closely to the lineage of Theodoric the Great, and gathered a large army to march back to Rome.

Vitiges besieged Rome and the Byzantines, who did not have enough soldiers to exit the city and drive the Goths away. The siege of Rome lasted from March 537 until March 538. How it was finally broken will be told tomorrow.

Amalasuintha

The Ostrogothic prince Eutharic took as his wife Amalasuintha, daughter of Theodoric the Great. Eutharic was in line to succeed Theodoric as king of the Ostrogoths, but he died too soon. After Theodoric died, however, Eutharic's and Amalasuintha's son Athalaric became king.

There was a bit of a problem that the Ostrogoths had with Amalasuintha, however. When Theodoric died in 526, Athalaric (516 - 534) was only 10 years old, and so Amalasuintha as regent wielded the real power in the kingdom.

Although it was an Ostrogothic kingdom, Amalasuintha was raising her son with Roman education and customs. She was a friend of and influenced by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. Grammar, rhetoric, languages and studying the classics was being stressed, rather than military training and learning Gothic customs and history. A carved diptych from about 530 shows her along with Athalaric, portraying the equal importance she gave to their public roles. There is a bust on the Capitoline Hill thought to possibly be Amalasuintha (see illustration).

Athalaric started partying and drinking heavily. In 533, after a particularly large celebration, the rumor started that he was ill. He died in October 534 from (it is assumed) excessive drinking and diabetes.

With no clear successor, Amalasuintha arranged a consortium of regents to make it appear that she was sharing power publicly, but privately she still held the reins. She ruled as queen, and named her cousin Theodahad (a nephew of Theodoric) as a co-ruler, hoping that having a male alongside would look better.

Theodahad did not agree with Amalasuintha's pro-Roman approach to governing, however. He was a member of the Gothic aristocracy, with a very different idea of how to rule the kingdom. Amalasuintha executed some people whom she thought threatened her power. She also demeaned Theodahad, forcing him to return some lands in Tuscany that he had taken by force.

Eventually, Theodahad had her removed from power and imprisoned on an island in Lake Bolsena in central Italy. On 30 April 535, while she was bathing, she was murdered. Some scholars believe that the murder was arranged by Justinian's wife, Theodora, because she thought Amalasuintha was a love rival. Others claim it was done solely to create a context for Justinian to attack the Ostrogoths and try to annex much of Italy.

In fact, Justinian did launch the Gothic War as a result, so I guess we should talk about that next (and find out what happened to Theodahad). See you tomorrow.

Race and Ethnicity: Canon 70

After the past few entries concerning the anti-Jewish Canons of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, we come finally to Canon 70, dealing with Jews who convert to Christianity but might change their minds at a later date:

Some, we understand, who voluntarily approached the waters of holy baptism, do not entirely cast off the old man that they may more perfectly put on the new one, because, retaining remnants of the former rite, they obscure by such a mixture the beauty of the Christian religion. But since it is written: "Accursed is the man that goeth on the two ways" (Ecclesiastes 2:14), and "a garment that is woven together of woolen and linen" (Deuteronomy 22:2) ought not to be put on, we decree that such persons be in every way restrained by the prelates from the observance of the former rite, that, having given themselves of their own free will to the Christian religion, salutary coercive action may preserve them in its observance, since not to know the way of the Lord is a lesser evil than to retrace one's steps after it is known.

Essentially, if a Jew has converted, it is important that bishops and others prevent them from being exposed to Jewish rites lest they turn away from Christianity. If not being a Christian was bad, then being Christian and deliberately abandoning it was even worse.

This was not the same as being a non-Christian in the first place, since "ignorance of the law was an excuse." If you had not been made Christian through lack of exposure (or coercion), you were simply non-Christian and living in error. But to deliberately turn away from a Christian life was a subversion of the social order according to the Justinian Code.

This was worse than being a heretic. A heretic was a Christian who erroneously believed certain points that were counter to the accepted tenets. A heretic was still a Christian, and persuasion (or coercion) could bring the "lost sheep" more fully into the fold.

An unrepentant apostate could be excommunicated, a way of saying "You want to quit? Well, then you're fired!"

Augustine of Hippo claimed that the "gift of perseverance" in Christian faith was a gift from God, and that an individual cannot know if God has granted them this gift. Without it, it was possible that a Christian might leave the faith.

How did Jews look at those of their faith who converted? Let's talk about that tomorrow.

Justinian and Celibacy

Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (527 - 565) took a keen interest in Christianity, and he had some thoughts on clerical celibacy. His Justinian code covered a wide rage of topics, including religion.

There were a few reasons for getting involved, one of which was economic. The early Church allowed children of priests to inherit their father's possessions, which included Church possessions. Justinian wanted to prevent Church property from being divided up or lost to secular figures.

The imperial decree was that married men and men with children could not become bishops:

This is why it is fitting to elect and ordain as bishops men who have neither children nor grandchildren, considering that it is not possible for a man subjected to the concerns of daily life, especially those that children bring to their parents, to apply all his zeal and spirit to divine liturgy and ecclesiastical matters. [Justinian's letter to Atrabius, Prefect of the Praetorium, March 1, 528]

Priests were not allowed to marry. Priests that were already married were required to practice sexual continence; that is, they were no longer allowed sexual activity with their wives (or anyone), but were to live with their wives "as a sister." (For the record, Justinian was married to Theodora from 525 until her death in 548, but they had no children.)

The Western Church allowed a married man to move up in the hierarchy so long as he vowed to be celibate, but Justinian allowed no such option for bishops, because they needed to be free from worldly concerns and irreproachable regarding sexual continence since they were in charge of much more than priests.

A code of laws must also include a way to enforce those laws, and punishment is the proper deterrent. In another letter, Justinian wrote:

Though the holy canons do not allow priests who are much loved by God or the very religious deacons and subdeacons to marry ..., we see that some of them despise the holy canons and beget children from the wives with whom, according to the priestly rule, they are not permitted to have relations. The only punishment for such an offense has always been dismissal from the priesthood…let such men be deposed from the priesthood and from the sacred ministry, .... Clearly, if such actions are forbidden by the holy canons, in the same way the crime must be stamped out according to our civil laws; besides the aforementioned penalty of deposition, we order that not even children previously considered legitimate be accounted as legitimate any longer,... [Justinian's letter to Julian, Prefect of the Praetorium, October 18, 530]

Not only did the priest get defrocked and become an outcast in society, his children also suffered from "the sins of the father." 

The Western Church had a slightly different view, and for a time did not want to  disrupt the sacrament of marriage that had been established by God. Tomorrow we'll look at the last married pope and his wife!

Genoa the Superb

Actually, when Petrarch referred to Genoa as "la Superba" he meant "the proud one." Genoa, on the northwest coast of the Italian peninsula, was a powerhouse of commerce from the 11th century until the end of the 18th. It was one of the wealthiest cities in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and one of the largest naval powers in Europe.

The origin of the name is uncertain. The Latin genu/genua means "knee," which could refer to its placement in relation to the "boot" of Italy. Because it has mountains on one side and the sea on the other, some say it comes from Latin ianua, "door," because like the derivative that gives us Janus, the two-headed god of the Romans (and January), it faces two ways. Pliny the Elder called it oppidum Genua, "Genoa town."

It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, with evidence of occupation from at least the 4th millennium BCE. In the 1st century BCE it traded in honey, skins, and timber. Its alliance with Rome made it a target of the Carthaginians during the Punic wars, and Genoa was destroyed by Carthaginians during the Second Punic War in 209BCE. After the Punic Wars ended in 146BCE, Rome granted it Roman municipal rights.

It was occupied by the Ostrogoths after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476CE. After the Byzantine Empire under Justinian I defeated the Ostrogoths, Byzantium made Genoa the seat of its vicar in the West. For awhile, Genoa grew slowly, building ships and making commercial connections to the Western Mediterranean.

There was another power—not Ostrogoth, Roman, or Carthaginian—that was making a name for itself in the 10th century, and that was the Fatimid Caliphate. Operating out of North Africa, they wanted to control trade (and destroy infidels). Tomorrow we will see what they did to Genoa.

The End of the Vandals

The Roman Empire ultimately decided that fighting the Vandals was not in their best interests, and made peace treaties, hoping the Vandals would keep to their current boundaries. Those involved in the treaty need to act in support of one another, however. When King Hilderic was overthrown by his cousin Gelimer—partially because Hilderic was too tolerant of Catholics (Nicene Christians) for the taste of the Arian Vandals, partially because his approach to military endeavors led to a defeat by the Moors—the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I chose to come to his aid.

With the intention to restore Hilderic to the throne, the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I sent  an army to North Africa. This was the start of the 533-34 Vandalic War, Justinian's attempt at reconquest of the Western Roman Empire. The Byzantines had a stroke of luck: the Vandal army wasn't home.

The Vandal army was on its way to Sardinia to deal with a rebellion there, led by Gelimer's brother. Seeing the Byzantine army approaching, Gelimer tried to gather what remaining forces he had, but they were insufficient to stop the Byzantines, led by Belisarius, from conquering the vandal capital of Carthage. 

On 15 December 533, the two armies met again 20 miles from Carthage. When the Vandal leader Tzar (Gelimer's brother) fell, the army scattered. Belisarius advanced to the Vandal second capital of Hippo Regius, occupying it with little resistance. Gelimer surrendered in 534, and the Kingdom of the Vandals was  no more. North Africa was once more a Roman province.

So what happened then? Gelimer was offered estates in Galatia (Hilderic had been killed in prison). He was offered the rank of patrician, but he would have had to convert to Catholicism, and so refused. The Vandal soldiers were shipped to Constantinople to become a unit in the Byzantine army. The best warriors became a cavalry regiment called the Justinian Vandals, or Vandali Iustiniani, and were sent to the Persian frontier. With Byzantine soldiers staying in North Africa to maintain the imperial presence, many married Vandal women.

Some Vandals migrated back to the Iberian Peninsula. One of them, Guntarith, came back in 546 with Moorish support and killed the proconsul of the African province in Carthage. His takeover of Carthage did not last long: he was assassinated by resident Byzantines and his Moorish counterpart, Stotzas the Younger, was taken to Constantinople and executed. That was the last gasp of the Vandal Kingdom that harried Europe and Rome.

One of the only contemporary accounts of the Vandal interaction with the Roman Empire is by Prosper of Aquitaine, who is relied on for the late 4th to mid-5th century. I'll tell you more about him next time.

Fighting the Vandals, Part 3

The sacking of Rome by the Vandals motivated the Roman Empire to prepare to deal with them like never before. It certainly made the Vandals themselves feel invincible. Their king, Genseric, sent a fleet of 60 ships to attack Gaul and Italy in 456. They landed on the southern coast of Sicily at Agrigentum, where they met Ricimer.

Ricimer was a Roman general, but like many Romans, he was not Latin, but German. He is usually described as a Goth by his contemporaries, but sometimes as the product of a Suevic father and a Visigothic mother. Some surmise that he was the son of a marriage alliance between the two Germanic tribes. His sister married a Burgundian king, Gondioc, giving Ricimer additional powerful ties. The chaos that followed the sacking of Rome allowed Ricimer to consolidate military hold over much of the Western Empire.

The Battle of Agrigentum was a success for Ricimer: the Vandals retreated to their ships to escape, but Ricimer followed and defeated them in a naval battle off the coast of Corsica. A year later, a Vandal army after looting Campania (the "shin" of Italy) was ambushed and defeated by forces of the Western Emperor Majorian. Majorian was a full-blooded Roman who had been a general and achieved the throne with the support of Ricimer and another general.

Majorian made it a primary goal to defeat the Vandals decisively. His first attempt, an attack on Cartagena in 460, failed. An alliance between the Western and Eastern Empires in 468 sent (supposedly) over 1000 ships and over 50,000 soldiers. The Vandals used fireships—ships filled with combustibles, set on fire, and sent into the opposing flat to do damage and cause chaos—to disrupt the Roman navy. Over 100 ships and over 10,000 Romans died. Rome's chances of achieving any kind of domination over the Vandals faded after that.

In the 470s, Ricimer negotiated a treaty with the Vandals. Genseric ruled the Western Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Tripoli.  The Vandals started minting their own coinage, although it was only low-denomination bronze and silver coins. They adopted Roman coinage when higher value was needed. When Genseric did in 477, his son Huneric took over.

Huneric was married to Eodocia, the daughter of the Roman Emperor Valentinian III. A fervent Arian, he nonetheless allowed some tolerance to other groups, allowing the Catholics to elect a bishop (a position that had not been filled in 24 years). He did persecute Manichaeans, however, and later in life returned to harassing Catholics, exiling their bishops and trying to force conversions to Arianism.

Under Huneric and his successors, the Vandals lost much of the territory that had been conquered under Genseric. The Ostrogoths took most of Sicily. The rising presence of Moors in the Iberian Peninsula chipped away at Vandal control of the Western Mediterranean. The Vandal King Hilderic (523 - 530) was too tolerant to Catholics, creating a civil war when a strong Arian faction overthrew him, making Hilderic's cousin Gelimer king and throwing Hilderic into prison.

The Byzantine Emperor Justinian then stepped in on Hilderic's behalf. Tomorrow we'll see the result, and the dissolution of the Vandal Kingdom.

Maghreb Jews

When Jews were expelled from England (1290) and Sephardic Jews from Spain (1492) and other locations in Europe, many of them wound up in North Africa, where there were already communities of Maghrebi Jews.  Maghrebi Jews are those who migrated to North African areas that are now Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. "Maghrebi" or "Maghreb" means "western" and refers to the western Arabic world. Sometimes Egyptian Jews are included, but there were distinct cultural differences between those in Egypt and the Maghrebi to the west.

The illustration is a synagogue off the coast of Tunisia, on an island called Djerba. It was partially built with stones that were brought from Jerusalem, and is still visited by North African Jews.

There were likely Maghrebi Jews living in ancient Carthage (the Carthaginians were also a Semitic people). Simon of Cyrene, mentioned in three of the Gospels as a man chosen to help carry the Cross on the way to the Crucifixion, was Maghrebi: Cyrenaica was a Greek colony in eastern Libya. The Roman general Titus deported Jews to Mauretania (Northern Africa) after the Jewish-Roman War of 70CE, adding to the Jewish population.

The Vandals established kingdoms in Northern Africa early in the 5th century. They were tolerant of the different peoples in their territories. This allowed the Jewish population to grow and thrive, so much so that the Christian churches decided to curtail their influence with restrictive laws. Moreover, when Justinian I's armies overthrew the Vandals, he issued an edict that lumps Jews with Arians and heathens.

Muslim rulers tolerated Jews, but when the Visigothic king Sisebut invaded the Iberian Peninsula and persecuted those he found there, many Iberian Jews fled to Northern Africa. The influx of Sephardic Jews eventually changed the local customs of the Maghrebi Jews to a more Sephardic manner. Fez in Morocco and Tunis in Tunisia became important Sephardic rabbinical centers right up until the 20th century, when many Jews emigrated to Israel, France, and Canada.

Once again I have found that I have referred to Vandals a handful of times without ever explaining who they really were. Let's fill in that gap tomorrow.

Reviving the Justinian Code

The Byzantine Emperor Justinian I had many accomplishments, but establishing the Corpus Juris Civilis ("Body of Civil Law"), often referred to as the Code of Justinian, was one of the most lasting. The first main codification of Roman law, it influenced many modern legal systems. It was given the force of law as the sole source of legal interpretation, which made the application of law across the Empire consistent.

Although established in the 6th century, copies were extensive for the centuries that followed (no originals from the 6th century remain). City-states in northern Italy adopted the Justinian Code as they grew and needed more formal systems of law to guide them internally and in their relationships with each other. By the time Frederick I Barbarossa came to the throne it was also being used in his territories north of the Alps.

Frederick began to use the Justinian Code which not only made application of the law consistent over a large area, it also bolstered Frederick's grander claims. Based on a Roman Imperial foundation, the Code embraced the idea of the "divine right of rulership." Frederick, like many worldly rulers in the Middle Ages, was in conflict with the Church over ultimate authority. The Justinian Code gave him a reason to push forward the idea that he had divine authority to do as he liked, such as taking over northern Italy as well as Germany, and clashing with Archbishops.

The Justinian Code was also adopted as the foundation of the Napoleonic Code, which abolished feudalism.

The "divine right of kings" was a common concept in the Middle Ages. One of the earliest examples was offered in the 7th century by Adomnán of Iona; I'll tell you about him next time.

Book Burning

The rounding up and burning of the Talmud and other important Jewish works, and the Disputation of Paris, in France in the early 1240s were not the only events of their kind. Western civilization had a tradition of harassing Jews by denying them their sacred and important texts.

Emperor Justinian in 553 forbade Jews to use the Secunda Editio (Latin: "Second Edition"), apparently referring to the Midrashic commentaries on Scripture. Centuries later, Crusaders marching through Germany decided to defend Christianity long before reaching the Holy Land by confiscating Jewish works as they passed through cities, leaving behind them piles of ash.

A decade before the Disputation of Paris, a public burning of Maimonidean writings took place in Montpellier France. Like the Disputation, this was started by an "internal" dispute. Solomon ben Abraham of Montpellier was extremely orthodox and was opposed to Moses ben Maimon's philosophy, so he invited Dominican and Franciscan inquisitors to look at the writings of one whom Solomon considered a heretic. The burning took place in December 1233. The inquisitors did not stop there. About a month after the Montpellier event, the Talmud became a target; copies of it and others—an estimated 12,000 volumes—were burning publicly in Paris.

The burning of the Talmud became a common event. Louis IX ordered more confiscations in 1247 and 1248; he produced an ordinance about this in 1254, which was upheld by Philip III in 1284 and Philip IV in 1290 and 1299.

In July 1263, the Disputation of Barcelona took place at the court of King James I of Aragon between another convert from Judaism to Christianity, the Dominican Friar Pablo Christiani, and the leading Jewish scholar Moshe ben Nachman, called Nachmanides. The debate was chiefly on the question "Was Jesus the Messiah?" The Disputation is a play by Hyam Maccoby, based on the Disputation; it was made into a film in 1986 starring Christopher Lee. You can watch it on YouTube.

The Christians claimed victory, but King James gave Nachmanides 300 gold coins, and to explain that, I should next tell you about James of Aragon.

Emperor Justinian

The results of Justinian's plan for re-unifying the Empire

The Byzantine Emperor Justinian was known for—among other things—establishing a code of justice. His reign, from 1 August 527 until 14 November 565, was sufficiently long that he managed to achieve many other things—enough that he earned the title Justinian the Great.

When I call him a Byzantine Emperor, I refer to a geographical designation; technically, he was emperor of the Roman Empire, albeit he ruled from the Eastern Empire. The division of the vast Roman Empire made it difficult to manage the entire territory; Justinian, however, decided during his reign that it was time to bring the empire back together.

Now, this might have been easy if the Western Empire were still under Roman rule. The Western Empire, however, had been overrun by Goths and Vandals. Justinian, who is sometimes referred to as the "Last Roman Emperor" because he was the last ruler who spoke Latin as his first language (as opposed to Greek), instituted a renovatio imperii ["restoration of the empire].

This restoration plan produced the Gothic Wars, lasting 20 years, Not only did he bring much of the old Roman territory around the Mediterranean back under one rule, but he also brought new territory to the Empire. The Tzani (now called the Zans, a subtonic group of the Georgians) on the east coast of the Black Sea had never known Roman rule, but were included in his military campaigns.

Anthemius of Tralles

Anthemius of Tralles (c.474-c.557) was mentioned as one of the builders (along with Isidore of Miletus) of the new Hagia Sophia. We know much more about him than that, however, both about his talents...and his annoying pranks.

We have an anecdote about how he avenged himself on his neighbor, Zenon, by fashioning leather tubes that he ran to the joists of an upper room of Zenon's house, where Zeno used to entertain guests. We are told that Anthemius would, by running steam through the tube, create loud noises and vibration in he room, frightening the guests into thinking there was an earthquake. Also, he would flash incredibly bright light into Zenon's eyes with a concave mirror.

Possible? Well, he did write a treatise "On burning-glasses"; we don't have the treatise anymore, but enough of it existed in 1777 to be included in a work called Concerning wondrous machines by an L. Dupuy. He apparently studied and wrote on properties of mirrors and lenses, and supposedly described a camera obscura. He explained how to construct an ellipse using string, and he wrote a book on conic sections.

This intellectual excellence ran in the family. His father, Stephanus of Tralles, was a physician with five sons. Two of them followed in their father's footsteps, Dioscorus staying in Tralles and Alexander finding fame in Rome.  The rest pursued different professions. Metrodorus became a grammarian in Constantinople; Olympius became an expert in Roman jurisprudence.

Anthemius' knowledge of conic sections and parabolas would have supported both his work on optics (known to the later "Second Ptolemy" Alhazen ibn al-Haytham) and his architectural aspirations when designing the dome of the new Hagia Sophia. He was able to create what is called a "pendentive": a design that allows a dome to be built onto a square base.

His success with Hagia Sophia led to him being also chosen—probably by Emperor Justinian—to design flood defenses at Dara in northern Mesopotamia.

The Dome of Holy Wisdom

The greatest church in the eastern Mediterranean was the Hagia Sophia [Greek Ἁγία Σοφία - "Holy Wisdom"] in Constantinople. The first church on the site was dedicated in 360 CE, and has served as an Eastern Orthodox Cathedral, as a Roman Catholic Cathedral (from 1204, when the Fourth Crusade captured Constantinople, until 1261), as a mosque (from 1453  until 1931), and as a museum (from 1931 until the present day). It was the largest church in the world until 1520, when the Seville Cathedral was built.

When the original church was burned down during rioting,* Emperor Justinian I ordered construction of the current building in the 530s. He employed the talents of two men—we would call them "architects," although contemporary documents refer to them as "mechanics"—named Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles. He insisted that they make a flame-proof building, so they designed it with stone and brick-and-mortar, bound in some places by iron, but with no wood anywhere. There are other dangers than fire, however.

On 7 May 558, the dome of the Hagia Sophia collapsed during an earthquake. It was rebuilt by Isidore the Younger, a nephew of Isidore of Miletus. This time, the design included 40 ribs as support, and a dome that was six meters higher. Unfortunately for the dome, the walls were constructed of less brick and more mortar, and built too quickly—they should have let the mortar cure longer in each layer before adding the next—and were consequently not as strong. The new dome also experienced collapses. The current dome contains a north section of eight ribs and a south section of six ribs from the original.


*Constantinople had two political factions, called the Blues and the Greens; their rivalry frequently became violent, resulting in property damage

Ignorance of the Law

Ignorantia juris neminem excusat.

Ignorance of the law excuses no one.

Many years ago, comedian Steve Martin offered up a monologue on avoiding a conviction for a crime by simply claiming you "forgot it was illegal." This was funny for decades ... right up until a week ago, when I read that the teenage perpetrators of the assault in Steubenville used as their defense that they "didn't know" what they were doing was wrong.

Can ignorance of the law ever be an excuse?

The Middle Ages deliberated over this topic, ultimately drawing a distinction between two classes of people: those who had no excuse not to know the law, and those who did have an excuse for their ignorance. Canon law wanted to be strict and definitive, but it recognized that there were segments of society that could not be held completely responsible for their actions.

For whom was ignorance of the law an excuse? Actually, several groups were considered exempt from presumption of knowledge of the law:

...minors, madmen, soldiers, and, in most circumstances, women were commonly believed to lack the capacity (in the case of minors and the insane) or the opportunity (in the case of soldiers and women) to know and understand the law. [Medieval Canon Law, James Brundage, p.161]

Much of medieval canon law came from Roman sources such as the Digestum Justiniani (the Digest of Justinian*) in 503. It assembled 50 books covering many topics by multiple jurists. In the Digestum, one classical jurist, Paul, draws a distinction between ignorance of the law and ignorance of fact. Although the legal system may not be able to presume that everyone knows the actual law, it must presume that everyone knows the fundamental factual difference between a good act and a bad act in their community. Otherwise, profession of one's ignorance becomes a universal excuse, and only those who are lawyers, judges, or politicians who actually make the laws would ever be able to be convicted.

Paul is also the jurist who created the basis for presumption of innocence when he wrote Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat. ("Proof is incumbent on him who asserts, not him who denies.") Although the accused could not avoid punishment by simply saying "I didn't know," at least he wasn't convicted based simply on another's say-so.**

*This was Emperor Justinian I (c.482-565), whose reign straddled the Classical and Medieval eras. The Digestum is not to be confused with the Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law), the much larger compendium (sometime called the Code of Justinian) that was assembled later in his reign, of which the Digestum was only a part.

**The phrase "Innocent until proven guilty" was coined by the English lawyer Sir William Garrow in the early 19th century.