#Byzantine Empire

[shewhoworshipscarlin]

Textile fragment, 700s-900s, Byzantine Empire.

[memories-of-ancients]

Byzantine chalice which originated as a green glass cup or bowl which originated from either Egypt or Iran in the 9th-11th century. When it made it's way to the Byzantine Empire it was decorated and turned into a chalice

[charlesoberonn]

Shout out to Porphyrios, the whale who terrorized the waters near Constantinople for more than 50 years during the 6th century.

You'd sunk more Roman warships than most of their human enemies.

[theaustinstollhaus]

Byzantine history be like:

In 874 Emperor Kostalogous IV ascended to the throne after blinding sixteen nephews, and married his wife, Theodora.

However, he soon ran afoul of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Theopelagionikus, and his wife Theodora.

In 895 he was deposed by his general, Justiniapelomaxorianous II, and his wife Theodora.

This created nine new church schisms.

[blueiscoool]

Byzantine Gold Necklace with Amethyst Beads Byzantine, 6th century A.D. Gold and Amethyst

[gemsofgreece]

Common Modern Greek phrases with Byzantine origins

"Παίζω στα δάχτυλα" (Pézo sta ðákhtyla) = I am very good at knowing something, I have learned it very well. Literally, I can play (sth) on my fingers. Children in the Eastern Roman Empire learned the basics of arithmetic by counting with their fingers, a practice still used in the old years of the modern Greek school.

"Ο ήλιος βασίλεψε" (O ílios vasílepse) = the sun set, literally "the sun reigned" It might seem counter-intuitive, however in Greek when you say "the sun reigns" or "sun-reigning" (ηλιοβασίλεμα), it is not about the sun being high in the sky but it is instead used for the sunset, the early evening. This is because of the striking colours of the sunset; gold, orange, red, purple - the luxurious colours associated with the Byzantine emperors.

"Ἐφαγα τον περίδρομο" (Éphagha ton períðromo)= I ate too much, I ate everything on sight. Literally, I ate the "peridromos". The peridromos was the edge of a deep bowl in which the Byzantines ate soup, so when they filled their bowl up to the peridromos it meant they were eating a lot. The interesting thing is that the origin of this phrase is very little known to modern Greeks and because peridromos can also have other meanings, there are also other interpretations that however make too little sense (IMO). This alone could perhaps be proof of how the phrase survived organically amongst the people even after the fall of the Byzantine empire (and its bowls).

"Μη με παιδεύεις" (Mi me peðévis) = don't bother / torment / trouble me, etymologically deriving from the word for "child". In Ancient Greek, the child was παις and its derivative verb παιδεύω meant "educate", an action interwined with childhood. Progressively, however, the verb became more and more associated with the pains and struggles of being educated until by Byzantine / Medieval Greek's time it had the meaning of "bother / torment". In Modern Greek the verb παιδεύω has kept the Byzantine meaning of tormenting / bothering but its respective noun παιδεία (peðía) still retains the ancient meaning of education or more accurately the full transformative period of learning in a young person's life. There are however other also ancient derivatives from the same words that are more precisely used for education terminology.

"Ἠμαρτον!" (Ímarton) = an exclamation in the likes of "I have sinned! (Forgive me)") Ancient Greek did not have a word for the sin. The verb αμαρτάνω (amartáno), whose form above is the past tense, meant "I miss the target / I make a mistake". In ancient Greek they would say it for example when an archer did not hit the target. By Byzantine times, however, the word had acquired a more figurative, Christian theological meaning because one's ultimate goal was the virtuous living, so when they did something bad or wrong, it was perceived as "losing sight of their aim, their intent". And that's how the word developed into meaning "sin" in Medieval and Modern Greek.

Source: Byzantinist historian Helene Ahrweiler

[mapsontheweb]

Byzantine Empire, 600 CE.

[illustratus]

The Emperor of Byzantium Basil II during the Georgian campaign, 1020 by Giuseppe Rava

[lionofchaeronea]

Sardonyx cameo by an unknown Byzantine artist of the 14th century, depicting St. Theodore Stratelates ("Army Commander"). Theodore (281-319) was a Roman soldier, said to have been martyred during the persecution of Christians by the emperor Licinius. Here, Theodore is shown in full military dress, a spear in his right hand and a round shield on his left shoulder. The accompanying inscription invokes him and his namesake, Theodore "the Recruit," as protectors; the cameo would likely have been suspended from a chain and wore around the neck as a protective amulet.

Now in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Photo credit: Walters Art Museum.

[wearemercs]

Byzantine reenactment by Evan Schultheis

[pedroam-bang]

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (2011)

[memories-of-ancients]

Chalice of Emperor Romanos, Byzantine, 10th century

[miku-earth]

Byzantine Miku by baccheuo

[useless-catalanfacts]

Did you know that there is a European republic that bans entry to women and female animals, and until 2005 also banned entry to Catalan people?

This place is the Monastic Republic of Mount Athos, a theocratic autonomic republic in Greece. It's an Orthodox Christian religious centre that covers about 33,000 hectares and is inhabited by around 1,400 monks in 20 monasteries. In the 16th century, it had reached 30,000 monks in population, and right before the First World War it still had 9,000.

It was founded in the Early Middles Ages, and has been given autonomy since the times of the Byzantine Empire. Since the very beginning, in the year 1046, their laws have forbidden entry to any woman, child, and female animal with the only exception of egg-laying chicken, because they consider that women and female animals must be kept out to preserve the holiness of the site and to keep the male inhabitants away from temptation.

The reason for banning Catalans dates back to the Middle Ages, too. In 1303, the Byzantine Empire was being invaded by the Ottoman Turks. They needed help to fight against them, so the Byzantine emperor Andronikos II asked the Sicilian king for help. The Sicilian king sent him the Great Catalan Company, an army of 4,000 Catalan and Aragonese mercenaries (almogàvers) and 39 ships, led by the commander Roger de Flor. The Byzantine emperor already knew Roger de Flor, because Roger had served him when he was a Templar knight. Roger was a very respected and admired fighter with an impressive career, and he also spoke Greek. The emperor and Roger reached an agreement, Roger was nominated Megaduke and married to the emperor's niece, Mary of Bulgaria.

The Great Catalan Company was successful in their job: they fought off the Turks and gave all the land the Turks had recently taken back to the Byzantine Empire. But not everything went well: the Byzantine emperor did not pay the mercenaries what they were promised, and the mercenaries were cruel to the population. In 1305, the emperor's son Michael (co-regent of the empire) called all the mercenaries to Adrianopolis, bringing together 9,000 men of different origins. Even though last year Michael had refused to meet him, Roger de Flor went to pay homage to him again. This time, Michael welcomed him and invited him to a banquet with the leaders of the two other mercenary groups. During the banquet, following Michael's orders, the leader of the Alan mercenaries assassinated Roger de Flor and all the men who accompanied him, and dismembered Roger de Flor's body. It is said that Michael ordered exterminating all the members of the Catalan Company.

Obviously, this caused a scandal among the surviving Catalan-Aragonese troops. They answered this betrayal by declaring war against the Byzantine Empire, and sacked many parts of Greece, murdering and setting fire to many places they found on their way to Constantinoble. This terrible event became known as The Catalan Revenge. The revenge was particularly cruel against the rich monk communities, who the mercenaries brutally attacked to steal their riches and then set the monasteries on fire. The monks of Mount Athos say that the Catalan mercenaries burned 26 monks alive. The horrible revenge left a mark in the memory of Greek and Albanian people. In Albania, the word for "Catalan" became the word for "monster". Meanwhile, the theocratic government of Mount Athos banned any Catalan person from entering their territory.

Albanian book titled "Catalan", based on an Albanian folk story that depicts Catalans as monsters.

The mercenaries' cruelty only stopped when the influential Catalan doctor and intellectual Arnau de Vilanova and the Catalan king James II begged them to stop.

Mount Athos' law prohibiting Catalan people lasted for 700 years, until 2005. That year, the Government of Catalonia apologized for the events that their fellow countrymen did 700 years ago. The Catalan government paid 240,000€ for the reparation of a Mount Athos monument that had been destroyed by the mercenaries' revenge, and sent an embassy to Greece to have a reparation ceremony, which was welcomed by the Greek government, too. This way, the law was abolished.

Sources: UNESCO, National Geographic, newspapers from 2005.

[blueiscoool]

BYZANTINE MARBLE TABLE TOP WITH ROUNDELS 6TH-7TH CENTURY A.D.

[gemsofgreece]

In the Castle City of Mystrás

Mystrás was the capital city of the Despotate of Morea (1262 - 1460), the last Byzantine stronghold against the Franks and the Ottoman Turks. The sons of the Byzantine emperors served in the region as déspotes but in a few occasions the emperors would also be crowned there. Morea eventually fell to the Ottoman Empire seven years after Constantinople (1460). It remained inhabited until 1825 when it was attacked by the Egyptian army under the command of Ibrahim Pasha during the Greek War of Independence. Until then, western explorers often mistook Mystras for Ancient Sparta. In truth, Mystras is overlooking the ruins of Ancient Sparta and the modern city of Sparta is built 8km to the east. 

Photos from Wikimedia Commons.