The Nika Riots, Part 3

Emperor Justinian's plan to end the Nika Riots involved bribes. One difficulty about the Riots was that two large and influential rival factions, the Blues and the Greens, had joined together against the imperial administration. The Greens were mostly working class: merchants, tradesmen, craftsmen. The Blues, however, were more elite, and more willing to listen to the emperor.

These two factions filled the Hippodrome, the site of chariot races that was attached to the imperial palace. Narses, a eunuch, was given gold with which to bribe the Blues. He entered the Hippodrome through the entrance used by the Blue chariot teams, going to the most influential members of the Blues. He reminded them that Justinian considered them his favorites instead of the Greens. He gave them the gold for their embers, and told them what the emperor wanted in return.

The riots had called for replacing Justinian with Hypatius, a nephew of a former emperor, Anastasius I. Hypatius had taken refuge in the palace with Justinian. An announcement went out that Hypatius would be crowned emperor at the Hippodrome. The teams let down their guard, thinking they were getting a happy outcome.

During the mock coronation, the Blues stood apart from the Greens, having been informed what would happen next. General Belisarius and his troops then entered the Hippodrome and started killing rioters. Belisarius took Hypatius and his brother Pompeius into custody while the soldiers killed anyone, Blues as well as Greens.

Procopius claimed that 30,000 people were killed, although it is likely that many of those deaths were caused not by the soldiers but by the stampede to get out of the Hippodrome. Although it would seem that Hypatius and Pompeius were innocent, Justinian now saw them as a potential threat to his power and had them executed (although later he gave their properties and royal titles to the men's children). Senators who had supported the rioters were exiled and their properties confiscated. John the Cappadocian, whose dismissal was demanded (and received) by the rioters, was reinstated.

Theophanes (c.759 - 817), writing over 200 years later, said the chariot races were not held for a long time afterward. A contemporary chronicler, John Malalas (c.491 - 578), says 35,000 were killed, although he did not have the "inside track" that Procopius had.

General Belisarius went on to be Justinian's chief commander of the military, involved in the first phase of the Gothic Wars, then having to return to northern Italy again to deal with problems (this was before the Justinian Plague and the Lombard invasion). We'll start looking at his return tomorrow.

The Nika Riots, Part 2

Let's look at how Emperor Justinian managed to stop the Nika Riots and save Constantinople. We saw yesterday how the Blue and Green factions were angered over the treatment of some of their own people, and how an attempt by Justinian to placate them with a chariot race erupted into rioting.

Now, previous emperors had sometimes canceled chariot races to avoid bringing people together and getting their adrenalin and testosterone built up, but Justinian took a different approach. He thought a chariot race would appease the crowd and give them something to focus on besides rioting.

How bad had the rioting become? They demanded that Justinian get rid of a prefect, John the Cappadocian, and one other legal administrator. Justinian agreed, and appeared in public from his balcony over the Hippodrome to apologize for the problems of his administration. He carried a Bible, and declared amnesty for all the rioters if they would cease the riots.

They were not appeased, however. Some wanted to declare a new emperor, and picked Hypatius,  a nephew of former emperor Anastasius I who was a favorite of the working-class Greens. Hypatius, uncertain of having popular support and not wishing to go against Justinian, took refuge from the crowd in the imperial palace with Justinian. Hypatius had a brother, Pompeius, who joined him. A cousin, Probus, another nephew of Anastasius, also wanted nothing to do with a potential hostile change in succession and fled the city.

The riots showed no sign of winding down in the next couple days, and Justinian considered fleeing Constantinople himself. The sea was open to him. His wife, Theodora, stopped him, saying (according to Procopius, who may, of course, have been embellishing) "Those who have worn the crown should never survive its loss. Never will I see the day when I am not saluted as empress." (Sounds like she didn't like the thought of exile, no matter how lavish it might be.)

A plan was crafted to quell the danger by bribing some of the rioters and overwhelming others. The plan started with Narses, a eunuch who had no connections or loyalties outside of the royal family that he served, and could therefore be trusted to carry out the first phase. (Narses would later be known as a military strategist during the Gothic Wars.)

Tomorrow I'll tell you how the plan worked.

The Nika Riots, Part 1

Constantinople during the reign  of Emperor  Justinian I (482 - 565) saw a tumultuous week in 532. The catalyst was a little earlier, when in 531 the city prefect, Eudaimon, arrested some citizens in connection with deaths that took place after a chariot race.

As we see today in the USA, after an intense sporting event there may be brawls that take place between fans of the opposing teams. From Ancient Rome to the time of which I speak (and beyond), the supporters of chariot-racing teams were very vocal and (at times) very violent. I spoke more about them yesterday, especially the Blues and the Greens.

Well, the brawl resulted in some deaths, and Eudaimon arrested some members of the Blues' and Greens' "fan clubs." Found guilty, they were sentenced to be executed for murder. On 10 January 532, the executions were to be carried out by hanging.

One Blue and one Green survived when, unexpectedly, the wooden scaffolding broke. This seemed to be an act of Providence, and monks from the monastery of St. Conon hurried the two survivors to a nearby church for sanctuary. Eudaimon, foiled in his attempt to seek justice, surrounded the sanctuary with his troops to prevent their escape.

This was very concerning to Justinian, who had plenty of other potential problems on his mind without angering two of the largest and most vocal groups in the city. On the eastern front he was trying to establish a peace treaty with the Persians after a six-year war. Demanding the two men be executed as planned could make things worse. Justinian was also blamed for high taxes and accusations of corruption in high government officials.

In order to avoid further unrest, he therefore decreed that their death sentence would be commuted to life imprisonment. He also declared a chariot race to be held on the 13th. The races were held in the Hippodrome (circled in red above), which was attached to the palace complex. Justinian was able to view the races and be seen from a safe balcony in his palace.

The races commenced, with the usual chants of the Blues and the Greens to cheer on their teams. As the day wore on, however, the tone changed. Instead of shouting out "Blues" or "Greens," they started shouting Nika!, "Victory" (or, if used as an imperative verb, "Conquer"). The crowds surged toward the palace itself, starting riots that lasted a week. Buildings were burned, including the Hagia Sophia, which Justinian would later have to rebuild.

Justinian's attempt at "bread and circuses," hosting more games to occupy and appease the rioters, failed. There was real fear that the city would be destroyed or the emperor overthrown. Tomorrow we'll see how it was resolved, although "resolved" is an awfully sanitized word for how it was ended.

The Blues and Greens

People love sports, and people love their sports teams, and rivalries abound. 'Twas ever thus, and Ancient Rome was no exception.

In Rome and the later Byzantine Empire, chariot races were extremely popular, so popular that the different teams, called demes (from a Greek word meaning "people" as in the words democracy and demography, but here used to mean "faction"), that were so persistently popular and polarizing that they became social and political forces and could be fiercely opposed to each other. The Blues included many of higher status, while the Greens were more of a working-class group.

There were four factions: the Blues (Veneti), the Greens (Prasini), the Reds (Russati), and the Whites (Albati); these colors were first mentioned by Pliny the Elder. The largest and most powerful were the Blues and Greens. These factions maintained their identities over centuries, starting with the time of Augustus in the 1st century BCE and lasting into the 8th century CE and beyond.

It is the 6th century in the Eastern Roman Empire that we will concern ourselves with, and the time of Emperor Justinian I (482 - 565). Although some modern scholars minimize the impact these factions had on society, evidence of the Nika Riots shows how strong an effect they could have on major cities where large numbers of the different colors resided.

Whole neighborhoods were described as pro-Blue or pro-Green. The factions created their own militias, and the emperor would sometimes request help from them in military matters. They even got involved in religious matters. When the Council of Chalcedon met, their conclusions were supported by the Blues, while the Greens were opposed (although these distinctions were not universal).

Even a 12th-century scholar, Theodore Balsamon, whose writings preserved information from earlier sources now lost to us, when writing about the Council of Trullo (in 692), comments that the emperors had no control over the factions and had to appease them.

Justinian, according to contemporary chroniclers Procopius and Evagrius Scholasticus, favored the Blues, likely because they included more elites and politicians. This made the Blues more arrogant and likely to cause trouble in Constantinople for others. Despite this, there were times when all factions felt the need to speak out against the state and join forces. One such time was the Nika Riots, when the Blues and the Greens united against Justinian. It started when the prefect of Constantinople arrested some members of the Blues and Greens in connection with some deaths during riots after (what else?) a chariot race.

The suspects were all to be executed, and on 10 January 532, the sentence was carried out. The Riots did not come about because of the executed men, but because of two—one Blue and one Green—who escaped execution by luck. I'll explain tomorrow.

General Belisarius

Flavius Belisarius (c.500 - March 565) was Byzantine Emperor Justinian's favorite military commander. He successfully managed to gain control of Northern Italy from the Ostrogoths during the Gothic Wars, and then was sent back to Italy when the Lombards invaded.

He was probably born in what is now Bulgaria, and a part of the Eastern Roman Empire (Constantinople still thought of itself as the Eastern Roman Empire; the Gothic wars were Justinian's attempt to re-unite with the Western Roman Empire). In his 20s he was a guardsman for Justinian, who at the time was not emperor but a prince and the nephew of Emperor Justin. Belisarius later was given the command to create a regiment of heavy cavalry armed with lances, bows, and long swords. This later grew to be 7000 men.

Although his early career saw him defeated many times, he retained Justinian's confidence. When Emperor Justin died in 527, Justinian took the throne and gave Belisarius command of the armies in the east. In the summer of 530, Belisarius managed an impressive defeat over the Sassanids (Persians) by digging trenches that forced the Persian cavalry into a vulnerable position. The Sassanid leader, King Kavad I, requested peace negotiations with the Byzantines.

A later loss to the Persians, however, caused him to be recalled to Constantinople and charged with incompetence.

Justinian was attempting some reforms against corruption that led ultimately to the Nika Riots, where Belisarius distinguished himself. They've been mentioned before, but it's time to explain how they came about, the intense rivalry between the Blues and the Greens, and the definitive way Belisarius dealt with the riots.

Burial During Justinian's Plague, Part 1

Sometimes a disaster strikes a civilization that kills so many so fast that the systems for providing support and burial cannot keep up. Such was the case when the Bubonic Plague came to town. One of the earliest recorded cases of the plague sweeping through civilization came during the time of Emperor Justinian I of Constantinople.

Procopius, who recorded much of the history of this era, wrote of the advance of the plague and how it affected its victims. He also tells us of the impact it had on society:

Now the disease in Byzantium ran a course of four months, and its greatest virulence lasted about three. And at first the deaths were a little more than the normal, then the mortality rose still higher, and afterwards the tale of dead reached five thousand each day, and again it even came to ten thousand and still more than that. Now in the beginning each man attended to the burial of the dead of his own house, and these they threw even into the tombs of others, either escaping detection or using violence; but afterwards confusion and disorder everywhere became complete. For slaves remained destitute of masters, and men who in former times were very prosperous were deprived of the service of their domestics who were either sick or dead, and many houses became completely destitute of human inhabitants. For this reason, it came about that some of the notable men of the city because of the universal destitution remained unburied for many days.

Modern scholars doubt that the number reached 10,000 per day, but generally agree that 5,000 per day was a believable number. These dead were so numerous that burial in the ground was no longer possible. An unusually creative method for containing the corpses was employed:

And when it came about that all the tombs which had existed previously were filled with the dead, then they dug up all the places about the city one after the other, laid the dead there, each one as he could, and departed; but later on those who were making these trenches, no longer able to keep up with the number of the dying, mounted the towers of the fortifications in Sycae, and tearing off the roofs threw the bodies there in complete disorder; and they piled them up just as each one happened to fall, and filled practically all the towers with corpses, and then covered them again with their roofs. As a result of this an evil stench pervaded the city and distressed the inhabitants still more, and especially whenever the wind blew fresh from that quarter.

Sycae was in Thrace. Climbing outside a tower and dropping corpses into it to fill it up was a truly horrific and gruesome solution to a problem.

A proper funeral had certain actions to be performed. Were these actions completely ignored in the haste to dispose of the diseased bodies? Not necessarily. Tomorrow we'll look at how to have a "proper" funeral when your goal is to eliminate too many bodies. (The illustration is a picture of bones from a mass grave of plague victims during the Justinian Plague.)

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, "secret" because it contained anecdotes 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 Procopius 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 recorded appearance of the Bubonic Plague in Europe:

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.