Section: 3E - Justinian and the following years.
Number of quotes: 83
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 132
Section: 3E
The name of one emperor remains associated with the official extirpation of paganism, Justinian (527 - 565), builder of Hagia Sophia and temporary restorer of the Roman Empire.
Quote ID: 66
Time Periods: 6
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 132/133
Section: 3E
From then on he became more severe, first toward converted Hellenes relapsing into their former error, who would be sentenced to “supreme punishments,” and then toward ordinary pagans:All those who have not yet been baptized must come forward, whether they reside in the capital or in the provinces, and go to the very holy churches with their wives, their children, and their households, to be instructed in the true faith of Christians. And once thus instructed and having sincerely renounced their former error, let them be judged worthy of redemptive baptism. Should they disobey, let them know that they will be excluded from the State and will no longer have any rights of possession, neither goods nor property; stripped of everything, they will be reduced to penury, without prejudice to the appropriate punishments that will be imposed on them.
This is followed by specific regulations, for professors, peasants (if landowners, their properties will be confiscated and they will be banished), those who practice pagan cults (the death penalty), young children (to be baptized without delay), older children (to receive instruction before baptism), heads of families who receive baptism without their families (they will lose their jobs), and so on. The first of these stipulations concerns professors: “We forbid anyone stricken with the madness of the impure Hellenes to teach, so as to prevent them, under the guise of teaching those who by misfortune happen to attend their classes, from in fact corrupting the souls of those they pretend to educate. They will not receive state pensions, having no license either by Sacred Scripture or earthly law, to claim for themselves any immunity whatsoever.” {4}
The word translated as “license” is parrhesia, which for more than a thousand years designated an essential attribute of the free man: freedom of speech.
Pastor John’s note: A.D. 529
Quote ID: 67
Time Periods: 6
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 139
Section: 3E
Damascius’ disciples, especially Simplicius, did not return to Athens, although they continued to write. Tardieu has shown that Simplicius settled in Carrhae (Harran), within Roman territory but beyond the Euphrates, near the Persian border, and there established a Neoplatonist school.
Quote ID: 72
Time Periods: 6
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
Pierre Chuvin
Book ID: 4 Page: 140
Section: 3E
After the campaign of 540, during which Chosroes invaded Syria, sacking, depopulating, and partially destroying Antioch, the conqueror exempted Carrhae from paying a tribute because “a majority” of its population was faithful “to the ancient religion.” {22} Manichaeans had also taken refuge there. During the truces between Romans and Sassanians, if a clause granted some freedom of conscience, it was not to benefit a handful of vagrant philosophers. It was to guarantee border inhabitants that they would not suffer too much at the hands of their temporary master.
Quote ID: 73
Time Periods: 6
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 265
Section: 3E
The Byzantine emperors cultivated splendor as it had perhaps never been cultivated before. They appeared in public in jeweled garments, their gestures were minutely studied, and they almost vanished beneath the weight of their panoply. They were gods walking the earth, remote and inaccessible, moving in that breath-taking splendor that was the mark of their divinity. Their palaces were plated in gold, they sat beneath gold crowns suspended from the ceiling, and sometimes they concealed themselves behind jeweled curtains. By the time of Justinian the Byzantine court had surrendered to almost unimaginable luxury. The great palaces on the Bosporus shimmered like the Christian churches with brilliant mosaics, and the Roman emperor moved like a ghost appareled in majesty. He was no longer merely the emperor. He was the king of kings, the vicar of Christ, the giver of all blessings, the divinely appointed one. The distance between the ruler and his subjects, always great, now became so great that they seemed to live in different worlds.
Quote ID: 331
Time Periods: 6
Ancient Rome by Robert Payne
Robert Payne
Book ID: 16 Page: 267
Section: 3E
Justinian’s triumphs against the Goths in Italy only left the state in complete disorder: after 541 there were no more consuls in Rome, the Senate withered away, and only the perfect of the city, praefectus urbis, remained to testify to the ancient traditions of the capital.
Quote ID: 333
Time Periods: 1467
Barbarians within the Gates of Rome
Thomas S. Burns
Book ID: 37 Page: 284
Section: 3E
While the West drifted into the era of barbarian kingdoms and warlords, the East held to the course set by Constantine the Great.
Quote ID: 797
Time Periods: 45
Barbarians, Marauders, and Infidels
Antonio Santosuosso
Book ID: 38 Page: 7
Section: 3E
It began in the 370s when about 200,000 Goths, moved by hunger and fear, crossed the Danube River that separated them from the Empire. The invaders were a crowd of half-starved individuals whose lands had been taken over by the fearsome Huns. In their minds, the Empire was the land of plenty, luxuries, and wealth of which they could only dream.
Quote ID: 800
Time Periods: 4
Bede – Ecclesiastical History of the English People
History translated by Leo Sherley-Price; Revised by R. E. Latham; Translation of the minor works, ne
Book ID: 80 Page: 90
Section: 3E
Pope Gregory sent with his envoys several colleagues and clergy, of whom the principal and most outstanding were Mellitus, Justus, Paulinus, and Rufinianus. They brought with them everything necessary for the worship and service of the Church, including sacred vessels, altar coverings, church ornaments, vestments for priests and clergy, relics of the holy Apostles and martyrs, and many books.
Quote ID: 2164
Time Periods: 67
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 27
Section: 3E
Especially so under Justinian (527-565). A brutally energetic, or energetically brutal, ruler enjoying a very long reign, he pursued the goal of religious uniformity as no one before him. “He did not see it as murder if the victims did not share his own beliefs.” Those he disagreed with he was likely to mutilate if he didn’t behead or crucify them; and among a number of highly placed pagans who escaped baptism by suicide, at least one he pursued to the grave, and buried him like an animal; apostates, he declared, should be executed.{89} Persecution came in waves, or at least it is so reported, toward the start of his reign, again in 545/6 and 562, and at the very end: “There was a great persecution of pagans, and many lost all their property. . . .A great terror was aroused . . . with a deadline of three months to be converted.”{90}
Quote ID: 1271
Time Periods: 6
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 42/43
Section: 3A2,3E
It is safe to say that the law was not enforced in any quite Prussian manner; yet the emperors certainly meant what they decreed. Any of their subjects who offered sacrifices should be executed, this in 352, in 356, and again in 451; should be exiled, perhaps more realistically, since before Justinian we hear of no one in fact put to death for this particular crime; should be dismissed from rank and office; or should lose all property and rights to bequeath it, thus bringing his relatives to bear upon him.
Quote ID: 1287
Time Periods: 456
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 146
Section: 3E
And still in these Greek-speaking regions, the uncovering in the sixth century of persons in the highest positions who were active in the old faith as well as in the new, so far as it was safe and even beyond safety—these too were indicated in earlier pages.Against such, the decree of the Justinianic Code spoke out: “Since some persons have been discovered given over to the error of the unholy and wicked pagans, performing acts that stir a loving God to just wrath, . . . who offer sacrifices to insensate idols in insane error and celebrate festivals replete with every impiety, even those persons who have already been judged worthy of holy baptism,” let them now be killed.{150}
Pastor John’s Note: look up
Quote ID: 1379
Time Periods: 56
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 151/152
Section: 3E
Two hundred and fifty years after Constantine was converted and began the long campaign of official temple destruction and outlawry of non-Christian acts of worship— 250 years after great buildings in the capital, great estates in the west and east alike, and great sums of cash and precious metals were first lavished on his coreligionists by the first Christian emperor—Justinian was still engaged in the war upon dissent. To this end he bent his armies and his treasury, his power to mutilate or crucify, exile or bankrupt, build and bribe. His general, Narses, assigned a regiment to the minutely careful smashing of offensive wall carvings in a temple which we happen to know about because it has been excavated and studied, while his agent in charge of the peaceable side of the effort, a certain John, was supplied with the equivalent of many months’ wages to offer to each person willing to be baptized. Eighty thousands were the harvest of John’s efforts, as we happen to know because he very naturally boasted about them.Pastor John notes: John’s Note: !!!!
Quote ID: 1384
Time Periods: 6
Civilizations of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History, The
Norman F. Cantor
Book ID: 203 Page: 47
Section: 3C,3E
The character of the eastern Roman empire was largely fashioned by two emperors, Constantine in the fourth century and Justinian I in the sixth. Their social backgrounds were remarkably similar; they were both of Balkan peasant stock. Constantine’s father and Justinian’s uncle both rose from this humble background to be important generals and later attained imperial power. Constantine’s mother Helena (St. Helena in the Greek church) had been a Balkan barmaid and probably a prostitute. Justinian married a circus dancer, Theodora, probably also a prostitute. Constantine and Justinian also resembled each other in great industry, administrative ability, and devotion to the church.
Quote ID: 4661
Time Periods: 46
Civilizations of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History, The
Norman F. Cantor
Book ID: 203 Page: 63
Section: 3E,2D
The first pope who seems to have perceived the great role in western civilization that the bishopric of Rome could possibly attain as a result of the disintegration of the Roman Empire was Pope Leo I, usually called St. Leo the Great (440-461).…
It was Leo I who clearly formulated the doctrine upon which the papacy could make those claims to jurisdiction that came close to fulfillment in the High Middle Ages. St. Leo can therefore be said to be the creator of the doctrine of the medieval papacy. St. Leo was born in the last decade of the fourth century and was elected bishop of Rome in A.D. 440. He was a member of an old aristocratic Roman family.
Quote ID: 4678
Time Periods: 5
Civilizations of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History, The
Norman F. Cantor
Book ID: 203 Page: 64
Section: 3E,2D
[Used BOLD part only]Twice, in 452 and 455, Leo, aware of the impending collapse of the Roman state, went out from Rome to engage in negotiations with barbarian kings who had invaded Italy and implored them to spare the city of Rome. In at least the first instance, in his negotiations with the Huns, he was successful. In 455 he had less success dealing with the Vandals, but it is significant that the bishop of Rome had taken the place of the Roman emperor as defender of the Eternal City.
…
Yet half-consciously the pope worked to make the Roman episcopate the successor of the Roman state in the West. The way for this transformation of leadership in the West from the Roman state to the see of Rome was prepared not only by Leo’s activities, but even more by the success with which he vindicated the claim of the Roman see to theoretical supremacy in the church.
Quote ID: 4679
Time Periods: 5
Civilizations of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History, The
Norman F. Cantor
Book ID: 203 Page: 65
Section: 3E,2D
Thus the bishop of Rome alone possesses the keys to the kingdom of Heaven. He alone is the vicar of Christ on Earth. He is the chief shepherd of Christ’s flock. This view was never accepted by the Greek bishops; it had, in fact, been denied by North African Latin Christians as late as the third century.…
But although the bishops of the western half of the empire recognized the validity of the claims made by St. Leo for the Petrine doctrine, the pope’s effective power was confined to Italy. France and Spain were on their own, and there were to be great labors and struggles in these other areas in succeeding centuries as the pope tried to extend his jurisdictional influence and make himself the real head of the western church. This attempt to turn the Petrine doctrine into a practical reality was to be the main theme in the history of the medieval papacy.
Quote ID: 4680
Time Periods: 345
Civilizations of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History, The
Norman F. Cantor
Book ID: 203 Page: 65/66
Section: 3E,2D
We can look back over the whole period between the death of Constantine and the end of the pontificate of Leo the Great and see that, unintentionally, the Christian Roman emperors had laid the foundation for the power of the medieval papacy. During the fourth century, the bishops of Rome were a succession of weak and incompetent men who used the great traditions and inherently vast powers of their office to little advantage. Fortunately, the emperors did the popes’ work for them. They crushed paganism and made Rome into a Christian city, which Constantine had failed to do and which the popes by their own efforts would almost certainly have never done. The emperors destroyed heresy and assured the doctrinal unity of the western church. They endowed the church with enormous material benefits and corporate privileges. Then in the middle of the fifth century the Roman state in the West collapsed. All that was necessary was the appearance of a great personality on the throne of Peter, a man of bold ideas and enormous energy, for the bishop of Rome to take over the leadership of the western church from the empire. St. Leo was the right man. Thanks to the work of the Christian emperors, the foundations of papal power had been laid.
Quote ID: 4681
Time Periods: 45
Civilizations of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History, The
Norman F. Cantor
Book ID: 203 Page: 145
Section: 3E
The leadership that was so badly needed by the disorganized western society of the sixth century could come initially only from the church, which had in its ranks almost all the literate men in Europe and the strongest institutions of the age. The church, however, had also suffered severely from the Germanic invasions. The bishops identified their interests with those of the lay nobility and in fact were often relatives of kings and the most powerful aristocrats.…
The secular clergy in general was ignorant, corrupt, and unable to deal with the problem of Christianizing a society that remained intensely heathen in spite of the formal conversion of masses of Germanic warriors to Christianity. Heathen superstitions and magic were grafted onto Latin Christianity: The religiosity of the sixth and seventh centuries was infected with devils, magic, relic worship, and importation of local nature deities into Christianity in the guise of saints, and the general debasement of the Latin faith by religious primitivism.
Quote ID: 4682
Time Periods: 67
Civilizations of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History, The
Norman F. Cantor
Book ID: 203 Page: 146
Section: 3E
The Latin church was preserved from extinction, and European civilization with it, by the two ecclesiastical institutions that alone had the strength and efficiency to withstand the impress of the surrounding barbarism: the regular clergy (that is, the monks) and the papacy.
Quote ID: 4683
Time Periods: 7
Civilizations of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History, The
Norman F. Cantor
Book ID: 203 Page: 152
Section: 3E
Even in Benedict’s day the Roman aristocrat and scholar Cassiodorus had envisaged monasteries as the most suitable places for the educational and literary centers of the new society.…
He therefore established a large monastery with the conscious purpose of using it as a center for Christian education and scholarship, and in his Introduction to Divine and Human Readings he carefully outlined a program for the monastic school.
…
This educational work, Cassiodorus pointed out, presupposed that the monastery would have a good library of Christian and classical texts.
Quote ID: 4684
Time Periods: 6
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 253
Section: 3A2A,3E
The emperor Justinian, faced by similar riots, the Nika revolt of 532, was encouraged by his wife, Theodora, to send in troops. Between 30,000 and 50,000 citizens are believed to have been massacred.
Quote ID: 4956
Time Periods: 6
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 253
Section: 3A2A,3E
In any case, as the contemporary historian Procopius put it in another context, “Justinian did not see it as murder if the victims did not share his own beliefs.”
Quote ID: 4957
Time Periods: 467
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 268
Section: 3A2,3E
It was, however, only under Justinian, emperor 527-65, that the full weight of the law was enforced against paganism. One of his laws of the 530s signals the end of the imperial toleration extended to all religions by Constantine in 313:All those who have not yet been baptised must come forward, whether they reside in the capital or in the provinces, and go to the very holy churches with their wives, their children, and their households, to be instructed in the true faith of Christianity. And once thus instructed and having sincerely renounced their former error, let them be judged worthy of redemptive baptism. Should they disobey, let them know that they will be excluded from the state and will no longer have any rights of possession, neither goods nor property: stripped of everything, they will be reduced to penury, without prejudice to the appropriate punishments that will be imposed on them.
Quote ID: 4970
Time Periods: 6
Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, The
Peter Heather
Book ID: 223 Page: 442
Section: 3E
Above all, the rise of the medieval papacy as an overarching authority for the whole of western Christendom is inconceivable without the collapse of the Roman Empire. In the Middle Ages, popes came to play many of the roles within the Church that Christian Roman emperors had appropriated to themselves – making laws, calling councils, making or influencing important appointments. Had western emperors of the Roman type still existed, it is inconceivable that popes would have been able to carve out for themselves a position of such independence. In the east, where emperors still ruled, successive Patriarchs of Constantinople, whose legal and administrative position was modelled on that of the Roman papacy, found it impossible to act other than as imperial yes-men. Appointed by the emperors at will, they tended to be ex-imperial bureaucrats highly receptive to imperial orders. {14}3E
Quote ID: 5620
Time Periods: 6
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 119
Section: 3E
Justinian’s concern with correct Christian dogma made him very hostile to non-believers of many varieties; he persecuted Jews, Samaritans, pagans, and heretical Christian sects with equal vigor.”
Quote ID: 5673
Time Periods: 6
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 120
Section: 3E
Justinian strong-armed the high-ranking clerics around him into making edicts, condemning previously uncondemned material, and replacing those cleric who opposed him. His edict condemning the Three Chapters, and the three bishops who had written them, was more easily rejected by bishops in the West, who were at a greater distance from Constantinople.
Quote ID: 5674
Time Periods: 6
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 121
Section: 3E
vis a vis Justinian’s Edict, “African antagonism was so strong that civil government removed some bishops from their positions and replaced them with manipulable clerics.” Opposition grew as more opposed the Edict. There were martyrs. It was too much of an intrusion into a church matter that had already been voted on and decided long ago.
Quote ID: 5675
Time Periods: 6
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 122
Section: 3E
Pope Vigilius caused problems by finally giving in to Imperial pressure (house arrest in Constantinople, threats, harassment, and bodily violence) and signing a document supporting the council called because of the controversy (553), a council which he never even attended (and which ratified the emperor’s edict). He died on the return trip to Rome, probably in part because of his physical sufferings in Constantinople, to which he had been forcibly taken by eastern soldiers (p. 147).
Quote ID: 5676
Time Periods: 6
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 123/124
Section: 3E
The next Pope felt obliged to endorse the previous Pope’s decision, but stood virtually alone. Through the years, Pope Vigilius apparent support for the Fifth Ecumenical Council was an embarrassment for the Catholic Church and her leaders. “Even Gregory I (594-605) on occasion advised acceptance of the first four ecumenical councils only.”
Quote ID: 5677
Time Periods: 67
Formation of Christendom, The
Judith Herrin
Book ID: 225 Page: 124
Section: 3E
Hereafter, the West lost much respect for the eastern Christian leadership, leaving them to their Greek quibbling over theological minutiae. They turned more than ever to Augustine. (“all things eastern” fell in stature - p. 149)
Quote ID: 5678
Time Periods: 45
Great Leveler: Violence and History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, The
Scheidel, Walter
Book ID: 359 Page: 319
Section: 3E
…a pandemic known as the Justinianic Plague, which lasted from 541 to about 750 CE.
Quote ID: 8155
Time Periods: 67
Great Leveler: Violence and History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, The
Scheidel, Walter
Book ID: 359 Page: 321
Section: 3E
A mere three years after the plague’s first appearance, the emperor Justinian condemned rising demands by workers and sought to ban them by government fiat.
Quote ID: 8156
Time Periods: 6
Great Leveler: Violence and History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, The
Scheidel, Walter
Book ID: 359 Page: 322
Section: 3E
This is the earliest known attempt to contain bargaining power in the face of an epidemic, a precursor to similar measures in medieval England and France and in early Spanish Mexico. But as the plague lingered and demand for labor grew, this decree’s effect on wages would have been limited at best.
Quote ID: 8157
Time Periods: 6
Making of a Christian Aristocracy, The
Michele Renee Salzman
Book ID: 297 Page: 194
Section: 3E
Even after a 380 law that effectively made orthodox Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire (C.Th. 16.1.2), no emperor legalized force to convert pagans until Justinian’s edict in 529 (C.J. 1.11.10).
Quote ID: 7459
Time Periods: 456
Procopius, The Secret History, LCL 290: Procopius 6
Translated by H. B. Dewing
Book ID: 467 Page: 135
Section: 2D3A,3E
Now the shines of these heretics, as they are called, and particularly those who practised the Arian belief, contained wealth unheard-of. For neither the entire Senate nor any other major group of the Roman State could be compared with these sanctuaries in point of wealth.….
For they had treasures of gold and of silver and ornaments set with precious stones, beyond telling or counting, houses and villages in great numbers, and a large amount of land in all parts of the world, and every other form of wealth which exists and has a name among all mankind, since no man had ever reigned previously had ever disturbed them.
*John’s note: Not true*
Quote ID: 9026
Time Periods: 26
Prokopios: The Secret History: With Related Texts
Edited and translated by Anthony Kaldellis
Book ID: 334 Page: 131/132
Section: 3E
A man of patrician rank would salute him on his right breast. {22} The emperor would then kiss his head from above, and dismiss him. All others bent the right knee to the emperor, and withdrew. {23} There was no requirement whatever of doing obeisance before an empress. But with Justinian and Theodora, everyone, including those of patrician rank, had to make their entrance by falling straight on the ground, flat on their faces; then, stretching their arms and legs out as far as they would go, they had to touch, with their lips, one foot of each of the two. Only then could they stand up again.{24}
Quote ID: 7831
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 30
Section: 3E
In the East there was a corresponding interest and pride in the West, nostalgic but real. The Emperor Justinian was himself proud to be sprung from a Latin-speaking province and was Latin-speaking by birth.Note: This would mean trouble for the Goths ruling in Italy.
On Magistracy in the middle of the century, regarded the decision taken after the publication of Justinian’s Code to promulgate all future laws in Greek, and the abandonment of Latin as the official language effected early in the fifth century, as disastrous to the imperial idea.
Quote ID: 4234
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 49
Section: 3E
When Justinian succeeded his uncle in the East in 527 events were already moving as he wished to recreate the unity of the Empire.
Quote ID: 4256
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 49
Section: 3E
After more than a century through the military victories of Justinian’s general Belisarius, the Vandals were defeated and the provinces of north Africa were reunited to the Empire.
Quote ID: 4257
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 50
Section: 3E
Although the sympathy and support of an imperial party in Italy was uncertain--Amalasuntha’s murder Theodoric’s daughter who most ardently valued both Gothic and Roman cultures, elevated her cowardly cousin Theodahat to be king–actually married him–who then arrested and murdered her had been the occasion for the retirement of many Romans, such as Arator, from the Gothic service--the northern Franks had been approached and, being orthodox Christians, were ready to accept imperial subsidies to act as allies.
Quote ID: 4258
Time Periods: 56
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 51
Section: 3E
Above all, in his Justinian’s search for ecclesiastical and religious unity to underpin the Empire in the East he desperately required the authority and support of the papacy. Within the struggle for the old capital, therefore, lay the fight to secure a pliant papacy so that Justinian, with all founts of religious authority subservient to him, might fully dominate the church.Pastor John notes: John’s Note: The following notes concern the “Gothic Wars” of Justinian, which were his attempt to reunite Italy (Rome esp.) with Constantinople.
Quote ID: 4259
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 54
Section: 3E
The strength of the eastern army which he led into Italy lay above all in the abilities of its commander. Belisarius was still young; he was born in Thrace, the same province as Justinian, perhaps in 505.
Quote ID: 4260
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 54
Section: 3E
He had brought King Gelimer in chains to Constantinople with vast booty and had been rewarded with the last triumph to be celebrated. Coins were struck in his honour as the ’glory of the Romans’, and he was given a consulship. His talent for quick decisive handling of cavalry, through a series of bugle calls devised by himself, was matched by his personal skill in arms and a singular inventiveness and ability in expedients. Personally he was a man of honour and principle; he had married Antonina, the friend and confidante of the Empress Theodora, who used him to further her own desires, but he himself remained aloof from palace intrigue. His wife was persistently unfaithful to him but he forgave and remained loyal to her.
Quote ID: 4261
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 60
Section: 3E
Only Leuderis remained in honour-bound at his post and was captured, to be sent with the keys of the city to Constantinople as another living trophy to Belisarius’ success. After sixty years Rome was once more united to her Empire.Pastor John notes: John’s Note: Not so fast! Not all in Italy had been. Vitigis was still commanding an army.
Quote ID: 4264
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 64
Section: 3E
Roman anxiety and opposition to the war was growing and superstitions were seized on for comfort. A group of old-fashioned senators tried to open the doors of the temple of Janus, traditionally left open when the republic was at war, but the hinges were stuck fast and the doors could not be moved. The Sybilline books were consulted; they revealed, falsely, that the danger would be over by July.
Quote ID: 4265
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 64
Section: 3E
When Pope Silverius refused to submit to Justinian (so that he could rule the Catholic church), “Theodora took action on his refusal, sending back to Rome the papal representative at Constantinople, the deacon Vigilius who had been Pope Boniface’s own nominee as his successor and whom, as a political cleric, she hoped would be more malleable with adequate funds and orders for his immediate appointment as archdeacon, the executive right-hand man to the pope.”----
Belisarius followed the queens orders to find some reason to depose Silverius. The Pope was exiled to the East.
Quote ID: 4266
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 65
Section: 3E
The new pope was, naturally, Vigilius. The son of a consul and the brother of a senator, his niece married to a consul, he was a man of the Roman nobility.
Quote ID: 4267
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 68
Section: 3E
....Vitigis was sent to Constantinople and, with the Gothic kingdom in disruption, Belisarius was recalled to the Persian front.----
The Gothic kingdom had been overthrown in a masterly campaign; now, to Justinian’s cold mind, it must be paid for. During the next three years, from 538 to 541, Italy did just that.
Quote ID: 4268
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 68
Section: 3E
The new financial officer Alexander, who had already won the nickname ’Clippings’ from his expedient of shaving the edges of coins issued by the imperial treasury, began his mission by drastically cutting military expenditure--especially the ration allowances--and so driving the troops to further appropriations from the Italians.----
Worse, the Gothic war had not been finally ended in the north. Count Ildibades held out around Verona with a small force; the imperial commanders, otherwise occupied and already quarrelling among themselves, did not think it worthwhile to eliminate him.
----
Over the years Ildibades’s [Goth] following grew with the miscontent of Italy and early in 541 the imperial generals realized the necessity for action.
Quote ID: 4269
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 69
Section: 3E
After Ildibades’s murder in 542, his nephew Totila hailed as the new Gothic king. He led the Goths to immediate victories over the divided and quarreling imperial forces.
Quote ID: 4270
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 69
Section: 3E
Justinian took certain measures to restore the situation. A commander-in-chief, the praetorian prefect Maximinus, was appointed and provided with a fleet and an army of Thracians, Armenians and a few Huns. But he was inexperienced in war and timid; he delayed in Epirus while the Italian situation worsened.
Quote ID: 4271
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 70
Section: 3E
The walls of Naples were razed by the victorious Totila, so that the imperial armies could count on no sure base for operations and the war would be fought in the open field where Gothic superiority in numbers would tell.
Quote ID: 4272
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 70
Section: 3E
Totila wrote to the senate in Rome, accusing it (with its nostalgia for the old ways) of destroying the prosperity of Theodoric’s peaceful reign. He made a distinction between the Greeks (East) and Italians (West) and claimed that the false conception of identity with the East had led to Italy’s ruin.----
The Imperial General John refused to allow the message to be delivered, so Totila resorted to the time-honored Roman practice of posting the terms of his letter on the city walls by night.
Quote ID: 4273
Time Periods: 56
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 71
Section: 3E
Totila tightened his blockade of Rome. Famine.
Quote ID: 4274
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 71
Section: 3E
Bishop Valentine attempting to bring relief supplies to Rome was taken to Totila who in an access of savagery had both his hands cut off.
Quote ID: 4275
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 72
Section: 3E
Famine in Rome Boethius’s widow Rusticiana spent freely from her fortune for the common good, and so did the deacon Pelagius, now the leading cleric in the city. It was Pelagius who was chosen by the Romans to lead a delegation to Totila to urge that both Sicily, the prime source of Rome’s provisioning, and the walls of Rome itself should be spared. Totila rejected both pleas; these alone had made Rome invulnerable and were responsible for the previous Gothic defeat, and Italy could not be held without Rome. Pelagius bore himself sternly and resolutely before the king and Totila was impressed by his firmness.
Quote ID: 4276
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 72/73
Section: 3E
the time of the Roman siege, either late in 545 or early in 546----
The failure to break the blockade was a final blow to Rome.
Quote ID: 4277
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 73
Section: 3E
Bessas and those senators who had most to fear from Totila, the patricians Decius and Basil, fled to Civitavecchia; others, including the senators Maximus, Olybrius and Orestes, took refuge in St. Peter’s. In all Rome only five hundred males had survived the famine, the plague and the fighting, and these also took refuge in the churches.
Quote ID: 4278
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 73
Section: 3E
Soldiers moved in on St. Peter’s and began to slaughter the pitifully few survivors--some eighty were killed before Pelagius could intervene. Totila exulted at the proud deacon’s supplication but conceded his pleas.
Quote ID: 4279
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 73/74
Section: 3E
The dismantling of the walls was ordered so that the imperial army should have no stronghold, but here Belisarius intervened. Writing from Porto he urged on Totila the antiquity and nobility of the city and the name history would give him if responsible for its destruction. Reluctantly and with the greater part of the wall still standing, Totila agreed, but the senators and their families were removed under guard to Campania and the city abandoned. For forty days Rome lay empty.
Quote ID: 4280
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 74
Section: 3E
Belisarius was recalled to the East.
Quote ID: 4281
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 74
Section: 3E
At once the garrison in Rome mutinied and murdered their commander Conon: their pay was long in arrears, they suspected Conon of trafficking in grain and they trusted no one but Belisarius.
Quote ID: 4282
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 74
Section: 3E
Totila’s first attack was beaten off, but . . . Totila was saved the necessity of a siege since the lowered morale of the imperial army readily produced traitors. Once more it was Isaurians who offered to admit him by the Ostia gate.
Quote ID: 4283
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 75
Section: 3E
Vast slaughter. “Totila now had his capital, and . . . his full title of kingship.” There was no longer any question of Rome’s destruction, his tenure was secure and he concentrated on the resettlement of the ravaged city.
Quote ID: 4284
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 75
Section: 3E
However, Rome was no longer to be left entirely to the Romans for Totila planned to leaven the city population with a trustworthy stiffening of Goths. Meanwhile as a sign of return to normality and of his endeavour to rule Rome fittingly, he gave circus games, the last ever held.
Quote ID: 4285
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 75
Section: 3E
Before the departure of Pope Vigilius to face humiliation and surrender in Constantinople there had been under his aegis one last flicker of the leisured literary life that Rome had cultivated in the days of peace. The subdeacon Arator, a pupil in Milan of Ennodius, had during Totila’s last siege of Rome been captured and held prisoner in the Gothic camp; remembering the fate of Bishop Valentine he had vowed that if he escaped with his life he would write in the apostle’s honour a metrical version of the Acts of the Apostles.
Quote ID: 4286
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 75/76
Section: 3E
But Totila could not linger in his new-found capital; his kingdom would not be secure until Sicily was finally subject. A fleet of four hundred vessels was prepared and the island, hitherto untouched, was ransacked.----
Once more Justinian searched for a commander. . .
Quote ID: 4287
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 77
Section: 3E
For nearly ten years Totila had fought his war with success in the open field; distrusting towns, he had sought to prevent the war being dominated by them.
Quote ID: 4289
Time Periods: 6
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 77
Section: 3E
Each side was anxious for a speedy encounter; Narses realized that the army he had gathered was the last effort of a bankrupt state, and Tortila feared an imminent Italian revolution. Early 552----
Totila killed in the rout of his army. Gothic power was virtually at an end. The kingdom of Theodoric was, after long resistance, “extinguished.” “Italy lay exhausted, devastated but liberated.”
Quote ID: 4290
Time Periods: 6
Theodora: Empress of Byzantium
Paolo Cesaretti
Book ID: 281 Page: 170
Section: 3E
Worshippers of other kinds were barred from holding office, from the army, and from the liberal professions. Their meetings were forbidden, their places of worship shut down, their property confiscated. They were even denied civil rights: they were unable to sue orthodox Christians for private or public debts, and could not testify against them in a lawsuit. By this time full Roman citizenship was being equated with Christian orthodoxy; those who did not profess it survived only by the grace of the emperor, in the expectation that they would change their ways.
Quote ID: 7033
Time Periods: 6
Theodora: Empress of Byzantium
Paolo Cesaretti
Book ID: 281 Page: 172
Section: 3E
The year 529 has long been seen as the death date of ancient paganism: in that year Justinian ordered an end to the nearly thousand-year-old Academy of Plato in Athens. But although Justinian forbade pagans from holding teaching positions, and although those who refused baptism lost their property and were exiled, recent studies show that the wealthy academy’s property was not completely confiscated even as late as 560, thirty years after Justinian’s order.
Quote ID: 7034
Time Periods: 6
Theodora: Empress of Byzantium
Paolo Cesaretti
Book ID: 281 Page: 173
Section: 3E
The Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law) named the emperor alone as the source of all laws; this was the most important work of Justinian’s absolutist ideology, and lasted as a monument for centuries to come.
Quote ID: 7035
Time Periods: 6
Theodora: Empress of Byzantium
Paolo Cesaretti
Book ID: 281 Page: 181
Section: 3E
Senators and patricians ceased to address the rulers with the technical, essentially neutral terms of “emperor” and “empress”. They were to address them now as “lord” and “lady,” if not “master” and “mistress.”….
With this momentous change, the public affairs of the old Roman Empire became private affairs, the personal domain of the emperors.
The same potentates who had once avoided brushing against the garments of the “impure” former actress were now compelled to express their devotion to her with their body and even their lips. They had to prostrate themselves not only before the emperor but also before Theodora, their hands and feet stretched out on the floor, and kiss the foot of both Augusti before they could rise.
Quote ID: 7036
Time Periods: 6
Theodora: Empress of Byzantium
Paolo Cesaretti
Book ID: 281 Page: 182
Section: 3E,2E2
The anchorites were seen as variations or metamorphoses of the ancient role of “philosopher,” and their unique status brought them complete freedom of speech and action (parrhêsia) with respect to the emperors, freedoms that were not permitted to others. They did not worship the Augusti but were worshipped by them. Magistrates prostrated themselves before emperors, but emperors knelt before ascetics.
Quote ID: 7037
Time Periods: 6
Theodora: Empress of Byzantium
Paolo Cesaretti
Book ID: 281 Page: 183/184
Section: 3E,2E2
Mār the Solitary, a Monophysite ascetic monk who had come to the capital under the protection of Theodora, was welcomed by both rulers together, but he did not do homage to them or even give them any respect. He didn’t even change out of his usual ragged tunic for the occasion: its repulsive smell was proof of his devotion and his celebrated mortification. Mār the Solitary was not old as Sabas: he was a vigorous man, an imposing figure, “an athlete of God” with tremendous physical strength. One of his biographers wrote that he was stronger “than ten criminals.” {27}The Solitary did not come to the palace to bless or admire anyone, but to chastise. He reproached the rulers for their religious policy which he believed was hostile to the Monophysites, despite Theodora’s position. And he did not just blame them: he insulted them, wounding them so deeply that the biographer’s quill hesitated to specify how. Protocol, the crown, and the purple mantle meant nothing to this anchorite, accustomed as he was to the emptiness of his lonely retreat in the desert.
His parrhêsia was met with surprising calm and majesty, like that of the ancient emperors—like Marcus Aurelius’s calm with Herodes Atticus. The rulers were not disturbed. They said: “This man is truly a spiritual philosopher,”…
Quote ID: 7038
Time Periods: 6
Theodora: Empress of Byzantium
Paolo Cesaretti
Book ID: 281 Page: 199
Section: 3E
Though she was a woman, she spoke like a man, like an emperor. She gazed at the res severa (the “solemn matter”) of life and power with clear eyes, focusing on holding on to and perpetuating her power. She did not mention Christianity in her speech. The solemn, haughty spirit of ancient Rome spoke for the last time in history, through her. That spirit had one final metamorphosis—as a woman, as a former actress—and then it died like the prophetic voice of a vanishing sybil.After this time, the concept of the true Roman man would be subsumed into the idea of the faithful Christian. Man would evolve just as the laws were evolving: whatever was Roman about a man (or a law) would survive only insofar as it was Christian.
3E
Quote ID: 7039
Time Periods: 56
Theodora: Empress of Byzantium
Paolo Cesaretti
Book ID: 281 Page: 205
Section: 3E
The revered Saint Ambrose, then bishop of Milan, dared to exclude Theodosius from the Sacraments and vowed not to readmit him until he had repented, which Theodosius eventually did. But Theodora suffered nothing like that in the second Rome; the temporal, imperial power in Constantinople didn’t submit to the power of the Church as did the western rulers.
Quote ID: 7040
Time Periods: 46
Theodora: Empress of Byzantium
Paolo Cesaretti
Book ID: 281 Page: 212
Section: 3E
The tools of her power—or of her cruelty as a “bane of mortals,” according to one unfavorable male critic—were discreet. There were rumors of bolts locking the doors “in some secret…dark, unknown, inaccessible… rooms of the palace.” {6}….
Others were gagged. Quite a few notables were forbidden to speak or protest, and were barely able to breathe. One such notable was Priscus, former personal secretary to Justinian, who seemed so arrogant and even downright hostile to Theodora that he was shipped off to a distant exile.
….
Still others—including those who gave testimony that did not please her—were tortured with whips made of ox sinews. We know of at least one case of torture with a knife: a certain Basianus, a supporter of the Greens, “insulted her” {8} in Constantinople. “Without a trial,” {9} Theodora ordered him castrated, and he died as a result.
Quote ID: 7041
Time Periods: 6
Theodora: Empress of Byzantium
Paolo Cesaretti
Book ID: 281 Page: 214
Section: 3E
In the text of one law, Justinian spoke of Theodora as “given by God,” alluding to the etymology theou dôron, “gift of God.” The auspicious name that Acacius chose for his daughter had become a reality, sanctioned by imperial words.….
He made exceptions for her alone, while armies and subjects continued to be no more to him than abstract masses and numbers…
Quote ID: 7042
Time Periods: 6
Theodora: Empress of Byzantium
Paolo Cesaretti
Book ID: 281 Page: 223
Section: 3E
Gelimer’s treasure included the great Menorah, the seven-branched candelabra from the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. The Roman emperor Titus had seized it from the Hebrews in A.D. 71; Genseric, the Vandal king, had plundered it during the sack of Rome of 455. Now the Vandals lost it to Justinian. Because the object had not brought luck to anyone who seized it, Justinian sent it and other objects from the Hebrew temple back to Jerusalem, their natural home, in the custody of the Christian community. But this gesture was not the only event with Biblical implications in the triumph.
Quote ID: 7043
Time Periods: 6
Theodora: Empress of Byzantium
Paolo Cesaretti
Book ID: 281 Page: 249
Section: 3E
THEODORA’S CLEAR SIGHT and the initiative she showed in the winter of 536-37 made Justinian more of a spectator than an actor. Constantinople’s pressure on Rome and Italy was pushed by Theodora, the least Western and the least pro-Roman of rulers. Unable to tolerate Justinian’s docility in the face of Agapetus’s actions and Pope Silverius’s later response, she took over.….
Theodora wrote to Belisarius in Rome what no other woman—empress or not—had ever dared: she ordered the general to remove Pope Silverius.
Quote ID: 7044
Time Periods: 6
Why Rome Fell
Edward Lucas White
Book ID: 343 Page: 263
Section: 3E
He was as mistaken as was Justinian when he thought that his code would end lawmaking for all time and would never be added to nor modified in any manner whatever, till the end of the world.
Quote ID: 7964
Time Periods: 6
End of quotes