by Cyril Mango
There was little point in Heraclius attempting to engage the superior Persian forces on open terrain. Rather, the emperor realized that his best hope would be to head north, to the highlands of Transcaucasia, where he would be able to request reinforcements from the Christian principalities of the region, and where a small, highly mobile army might yet outwit a numerically preponderant foe. On 25 March 624 Heraclius departed from Constantinople. Advancing up the Euphrates, the Romans marched into Persian Armenia, laying waste a number of cities as they went. The emperor then struck south into the Persian Caucasian territory of Atropatene, driving Khusro and his army from the city of Ganzak and destroying the premier fire-temple of the Zoroastrian religion at Takht-i-Sulaiman. Heraclius then headed north once more, establishing his winter quarters in the principality of Albania. It is from here that the emperor is likely to have issued his summons to the Christian lords of the region, considerable numbers of whom appear to have flocked to his standard along with their men-at-arms. At the same time, an embassy was sent to the Turks to the north of the Caucasus, in an attempt to negotiate an alliance with the formidable steppe power.
David and Goliath. Silver plate, AD 613–30. One of nine plates decorated with scenes of David’s life, found with other silver objects and gold jewellery near Kyrenia, Cyprus. The iconography of the plate has been interpreted in the light of the war between Byzantium and Persia, which ended in 628.
In the spring of 625 three Persian armies were sent in pursuit of Heraclius. Outmanoeuvring and defeating each of these in turn, the emperor headed towards the Black Sea coast and the kingdom of Lazica. It was then that news reached him of disturbing developments back home. The Persians were once more mobilizing their troops for an assault not only on Anatolia, but on Constantinople itself, an attack which was to be co-ordinated with an Avar siege of the city’s European defences. Heraclius gambled on his hope that the city would be able to hold out. Rather than rush back to his capital, he marched into Anatolia, from where he would be able to harry the advancing Persian forces. This strategy appears to have been successful. The Persians could neither mount an effective naval assault on the city, nor convey their troops to the European shore so as to launch a land attack. At the same time, the 80,000-strong Avar host was unable to overcome Constantinople’s formidable fortifications and soon melted away.
After a brief return to Constantinople, Heraclius hastened back to Lazica. It was now that he activated the alliance with the Turks that his ambassadors had successfully negotiated. In 627, a large Turkish army stormed the Persian defences between the Caucasus and the Caspian and struck deep into the Persian-held kingdom of Iberia. Outside the regional capital of Tiflis, the Turkish army met up with Heraclius and the Romans. In an impressive show of force, the joint Roman–Turkish army then headed south, through Atropatene, to the Zagros mountains. The Turks then returned north, but Heraclius marched still further south across the Zagros and, on 12 December 627, defeated a Persian army near the city of Nineveh. Advancing along the left bank of the Tigris, Heraclius bore down upon the Persian capital at Ctesiphon. It was at this point that he demonstrated the full extent of his military cunning. Rather than following in the footsteps of Julian and risking a frontal assault on the city, the emperor ravaged the cities and countryside to the north, intensifying the psychological pressure on the Persian high command.
Amongst military and court circles in Ctesiphon panic set in. A delegation was sent to Heraclius advising him of a conspiracy to depose Khusro, replace him with his son, Kavad-Shiroe, and initiate negotiations with the Romans. On 24 March 628 notice reached the emperor that Khusro II was dead and that the arrival of a peace delegation was imminent. The victory dispatch to Constantinople announced: ‘fallen is the arrogant Khusro, the enemy of God. He is fallen and cast down to the depths of the earth, and his memory is utterly exterminated.’
Political conditions within Ctesiphon remained highly volatile. In October 628, Kavad-Shiroe died and was replaced by his son Ardashir. Ardashir was then overthrown by the commander of the Persian forces in the West, who in turn was deposed and replaced by a weak council of regency. As one regime succeeded another, Heraclius took advantage of the situation to extract ever more favourable terms. Eventually, it was agreed to return the Roman–Persian frontier to that established by Khusro II and Maurice in 591. On 21 March 630, Heraclius restored the True Cross to Jerusalem.
The eastern empire was thus restored, or at least, it was to some extent. The imperial concentration on the East had led to a further dramatic weakening of its position in the Balkans. Although the Avar confederacy lay in ruins in the aftermath of the defeat of 626, not only the highlands but, increasingly, the lowlands of the Balkans were coming to be settled by autonomous Slav tribes. The cities of Anatolia and Asia Minor had been exhausted by the financial exertions of warfare. Many of them stood in ruin as a result of Persian attack. In Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, the reassertion of imperial control at this point must have been largely nominal. Long-standing traditions of government had been dislocated and were yet to be restored. Before any such restoration could take place, the empire found itself faced with a new challenge from along its extended and largely undefended Arabian frontier.
The rivalry between Rome and Persia of the sixth and early seventh centuries had involved both empires in a series of military and diplomatic dealings with the Arabian tribes to their south. This involvement within the region on the part of the great powers appears to have sparked off what some historians have characterized as a ‘nativist revolt’ amongst elements within Arabian society. By the 620s, the tribes of Arabia had come to be united under the leadership of a religious leader originating from Mecca known as the Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad preached a rigorously monotheist doctrine, strongly influenced by apocalyptic trends within contemporary Christianity, and by Messianic fervour amongst the Jews of the region. Divine judgement was imminent, and all were to submit themselves to the will of the one God. In particular, all Arabs were to set aside their polytheist traditions and embrace the new faith. In return, Muhammad declared that, as descendants of Abraham’s first-born son, Ishmael, whom Abraham had cast out into the desert, the Arabs would be granted mastery over the Holy Land which God had promised to Abraham and his seed for ever. Perhaps influenced by propaganda disseminated during the course of Heraclius’ struggle against Khusro II, this return to the Holy Land was to be achieved by means of holy war.
Muhammad is said to have died around the year 632. His creed lived on. From 633/4, Roman Palestine suffered savage Arab incursions that combined the terrorizing and massacring of the rural population with assaults on towns and cities. Although the size of the Arab armies appears to have been relatively small, the imperial authorities were evidently in no position to offer effective resistance. Intelligence as to the nature of the Arab threat was limited, whilst the rapid advance of the Arab line of battle gave the imperial forces little time to regroup.
Faced with such a situation, a number of cities in the Transjordan, Palestine, and Syria simply capitulated. Damascus was taken in 635, whilst in 636 a large Roman army was decisively defeated near the river Yarmuk in northern Jordan. Thereafter, conquest was swift. Jerusalem fell in 638. The following year retreating Roman forces were pursued into Egypt. As with Khusro II’s initial campaign of 603, the weakness of the Roman response to the Arabs led the invaders to campaign ever further afield. Similarly, only when they found themselves forced back into Asia Minor were the Roman commanders able to begin to stem the enemy advance. The civil strife of the early seventh century and the years of warfare with Persia had clearly inflicted lasting damage. When, in 641, Heraclius died, the empire was collapsing around him once more. The eastern Roman empire of Byzantium now faced its second great struggle for survival, one which was to dominate its early medieval history.
Status and its Symbols
MARLIA MUNDELL MANGO
Byzantine art had the aesthetic and material means to express imperial pow
er—through images of hieratic authority, impressive trappings of office, and awe-inspiring settings. The emperor’s image was displayed in sculpture and other monumental art. It was disseminated on coins, commemorative medallions, anniversary dishes, ivory plaques, weights, silver control stamps, and bullae. Costly materials such as silk, marbles, and mosaics enhanced prestige architecture. Byzantine imperial regalia were exclusive, yet bestowed to advantage on barbarian allies. As proof of their effectivenss, regalia and settings were imitated by barbarian rulers.
Imperial regalia are described in written sources and shown in portraits. Corippus describes how at the coronation of Justin II (AD 565) attendants carried the imperial robes, the belt studded with gems, the crown, and the brooch. So important were the imperial forms of adornment that Justinian reissued an earlier law that states: ‘No one [but the emperor] shall hereafter be permitted to decorate the bridles and saddles of his horses, or his own belts with pearls, emeralds, or hyacinths.’ The fine for infringement was 100 lb. of gold and capital punishment. Similar legislation applied to purple silk. The imperial fibula, described by Procopius as a circular brooch with three pendant gems is shown worn by Theodosius I and Justinian. Justinian’s bestowal of this fibula together with the right to wear red boots, on foreign powers, such as the five Armenian satraps, was regarded as an extraordinary concession. Later Byzantine emperors sent crowns ‘as a claim to suzerainty’ to the Khazars, the Hungarian Turks, the Russians, and other barbarian kings.
For documents of particular importance the emperor used a gold sealing (chrysobull), which gave its name to the document to which it was attached. The size of the gold bulla bearing his image sent to foreign powers, was regulated according to the importance of the addressee. In the mid-tenth century the heaviest bullae, of 4 solidi weight were destined for the caliph of Baghdad and the sultan of Egypt, the lightest, of 1 solidus weight were sent to the pope of Rome. Chrysobulls containing grants of real estate and privileges are still preserved in monastic archives on Mount Athos, Patmos (see special feature on Monasticism), and elsewhere. These are normally signed by the emperor in red ink.
In the mosaic panel of San Vitale at Ravenna, Justinian is shown wearing the imperial fibula with three pendant gems, also worn by Theodosius on his missorium (p. 32). The person to his left wears a gold cross-bow fibula.
Notitia Dignitatum. At the top are four pairs of codices relating to four different magistri. The books are thought to contain mandates, orders issued by the emperor concerning each office. Below are four sets of scrolls, three books, and one writing tablet (in the lower right), also corresponding to the four magistri. The scrolls, perhaps of papyrus, represent documents.
The protocol shown here, contemporary with Justinian’s law of 537, is made out in the name of Fl. Strategius, Count of the Sacred Largesses (535–c.538), and was executed in the month of Phaophi, indiction 12 by the notary Aristomachus. Strategius was a member of the enormously wealthy Apion family and had served as governor of Alexandria.
Throughout its history, the Byzantine state was governed by an extensive bureaucracy. Its personnel is recorded in documents such as the Notitia Dignitatum of the early period and the taktika of the middle and later periods. The elite of the Later Roman Empire was one of service, not birth, and all imperial service was designated as militia, whether it was military or civil. A more narrow distinction may be made, however, between the long-term militia appointments and the higher posts, the dignitates which carried honorific titles. The Notitia Dignitatum is a list of civil and military offices of the Roman Empire (drawn up c.400–29) which in its preserved copies illustrates the insignia and trappings of officials of the court (comitatus) and provincial government under the Praetorian Prefects. The taktika of the late ninth and tenth centuries list ranks of official posts and honorific titles. The Kletorologion of Philotheos of 899 gives 72 posts of seven ranks and 18 honorific titles for bearded officials and 8 for eunuchs. A continuous inflation of honorific titles resulted in the introduction of new ones, such as proedros in the tenth century and sebastos in the late eleveth. By the late twelfth, sebastos became panhypersebastos or protosebastohypertatos.
Among the offices listed in the Notitia Dignitatum is that of the Magister scriniorum, the Master of the Record Office, a member of the comitatus. The page devoted to this office in the Notitia has sets of codices and rolls corresponding to the magistri (memoriae, epistolarum, libellorum) charged with various legal and administrative duties, and to the magister epistolarum graecarum who wrote letters issued in Greek or translated into Greek those issued in Latin. The scrinia drafted responses to judicial and other petitions and issued letters of appointment (probatoriae) to civil servants. The various documents produced in the Record Office may be represented by the rolls shown lower on the page.
Other documents of the period, written on papyrus, survive in large numbers from Egypt. Although by Late Antiquity, literary and other texts were written in codices of parchment, papyrus was still used for documents. Our word ‘protocol’ comes from the papyrus roll and denotes the first sheet (kollema) that was gummed on to the others. Justinian’s Novel 44 (AD 537) lays down that notarial acts written at Constantinople should bear on the protocollum the name of the Count of the Sacred Largesses in office at the time, the date and other appropriate details and that it should remain attached to the the rest of the document so as to avoid fraud. As a further precaution protocols were usually written in a special, stylized hand that proved very difficult to decipher.
While the sacra scrinia issued probatoriae to militia members, a codicil or document of appointment, signed by the emperor was presented to the new holder of a dignitas. This act is ceremoniously represented on the Theodosian missorium, while the young son of Stilicho, Eucherius, is shown holding his new codicil on an ivory diptych probably made to announce his appointment (see p. 37). For certain offices (Prefects, Masters of Soldiers or Offices, etc.) the codicil took the form of gilded ivory plaques, which were distinct in purpose from the ivory diptych of Eucherius and those issued by the consuls of Rome and Constantinople when they assumed office on 1 January. These diptychs, circulated to friends and senatorial colleagues, illustrate the trappings and activities of the consul (see p. 167).
Above: gold buckle with Greek monogram, possibly of one Baanes, on the right end. Probably early seventh century. From Crete.
Right: The gilded copper fibula with lateral pelta motifs is the type worn by Stilicho and his son on their ivory diptych. See p. 37. Fifth century.
Like the emperor, members of the bureaucratic hierarchy had a specific costume. The civil servant John Lydus, writing c.AD 550, describes in detail how the Praetorian Prefect of the East wore a purple tunic, a crimson hide belt fastened by a gold buckle, and a cloak (chlamys) with tablia (coloured patches) fastened at the right shoulder by a fibula or brooch. A contemporary lawyer, Agathias Scholastikos, wrote an epigram on a portrait of the Master of Offices, Theodore, who was shown receiving his belt of office from an archangel. The phrase to ‘lay aside the belt’ signified resignation from office. The non-imperial fibula was cross-bow in shape and, like the buckle, made of gold, silver, gilded bronze, or bronze. According to Procopius, people were forced to wear gilded bronze copies of brooches and other jewellery as a safeguard against theft. The different types of fibulae as they evolved between the fourth and the sixth century appear in contemporary portraits and in those of military saints.
Five boulloteria survive. Every individual with a title—whether civil, military, or ecclesiastical—possessed this device and acquired a new one with every change of title. The example illustrated here (eleventh/twelfth-century) belonged to a Constantine sebastos whose name is engraved on one die, while the image of St Theodore is on the other.
The bestowal of insignia on members of the court hierarchy, recalling those of Late Antiquity, continued into the early Middle Ages. The highest ranks received a purple, red, or white tunic, a mantle, and a belt: others were given
ivory tablets, a gold collar, a gold whip, or a fibula. The practice may have ceased in the Komnenian period.
In the Byzantine period, from the sixth century onwards, lead sealings marked with the device and/or titles of the owner were used on documents and correspondence, where previously wax had been more convenient. The lead seal was produced by the massive iron boulloterion. Lead had been commonly used for sealing bales of merchandise in the Roman period, a practice apparently continued by Byzantine commercial agents (kommerkiarioi). About 50,000 Byzantine lead seals are known, most, it seems, discovered in Istanbul. They have made a significant contribution to our knowledge of Byzantine administration and prosopography.
Plans of Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria drawn to the same scale. In terms of area Constantinople came closest to Alexandria, but the broad belt of land between the Constantinian and Theodosian walls was always sparsely populated.
Constantinople
CYRIL MANGO
Although founded as the New Rome, Constantinople bore little physical resemblance to the city on the Tiber. Constantine’s capital included six, not seven hills (a seventh was added under Theodosius II) and its basic feature of urban planning was the straight colonnaded street punctuated by squares and ornamental monuments, characteristic of the grander provincial cities of the Roman East, such as Palmyra, Antioch, and Apamea. Deliberate imitation of Rome is apparent only in the reign of Theodosius I, a Spaniard who claimed descent from the emperor Trajan. The Forum of Theodosius, of which only some bits survive, was a smaller replica of Trajan’s famous forum in Rome, with a ‘historiated’ column copied from Trajan’s, and a transverse basilica. A second historiated column of similar design adorned the forum of Theodosius’ son Arcadius (see p. 35). The juxtaposition of imperial palace and hippodrome did, of course, mirror the coupling of Palatine hill and Circus Maximus in Rome, but had become a standard feature of Tetrarchic capitals even before Constantine.
