#Late Roman Empire

[memories-of-ancients]

Petronius Maximus --- The dipshit Roman emperor who caused the sack of Rome because he was an arrogant dipshit.

Petronius Maximus was a wealthy Roman politician born in 397 AD to old Roman money. Like many wealthy Romans he went into politics and throughout the early 5th century climbed the ranks of Roman government until he became one of the most powerful men in the Western Roman Empire. He was crafty and he was ambitious. He was also a dipshit and an asshole.

By the 450's P. Maximus had a clear plan, to create a power vacuum in Rome that he could cunningly fill. He began by turning the emperor at the time, Valentinian III, against his magister militum Flavius Aetius. As magister militum Aetius was commander of the Roman Army, and had proven himself a master tactician and brilliant diplomat. Through military victories and diplomacy Aetius was barely holding a crumbling empire together. Maximus convinced Valentinian III that Aetius was looking to usurp his throne. Thus in 454 Valentinian summoned Aetius to his palace and personally murdered him with his sword. Maximus had organized the death of the most talented Roman official in the empire, which in the grand scheme of things was probably a big mistake. With Aetius dead, Maximus expected he would take Aetius' place as magister militum. However Valentinian refused to appoint him as magister militum. Thus in 455 AD, Maximus had him assassinated, hiring two of Aetius' bodyguards to do the deed as revenge.

Several powerful Romans claimed the Imperial throne but Maximus managed to beat them all to the punch by taking over the Imperial Palace and immediately marrying Valentinian's widow, Licinia Eudoxia. Licinia didn't know Maximus had murdered her husband at the time but had suspicions. He also forced her daughters, Placidia and Eudocia to marry his sons. Through deceit and murder Maximus had managed to weasel his way into the Roman Imperial family and was now creating his own Imperial dynasty. Thus Petronius Maximus had become Emperor Dipshit, ruler of the shiny turd of what was left of the Western Roman Empire.

Problem was, when Emperor Dipshit married off Placidia and Eudocia to his sons, he canceled Eudocia's arranged marriage to Hunneric, who was the son of Geiseric, king of the Vandals. The Vandals were a Germanic tribe that had set up a prosperous kingdom in the former Roman province of North Africa, and were constantly raiding the Italian coast. Valentinian had arranged the marriage of Eudocia as a peace offering to Geiseric. Geiseric had received a letter from Eudoxia informing him that Maximus had killed her husband and was canceling the marriage of Eudocia. Geiseric was enraged at Empror Dipshit for canceling the marriage, and sent a Vandal fleet and army to Rome in response. "No problem" said Emperor Dipshit, "we got the Roman Army".

Except there was no Roman Army. Not really. After the death of Aetius the remains of the standing full time professional army had collapsed almost completely. Even Aetius was very dependent on mercenaries and allies. Nobody wanted to enlist in the Roman Army in the 5th century, with Romans going so far as to cut off their own fingers to avoid conscription. The Roman economy was a mess, the Imperial bureaucracy was riddled with corruption, the life of the average Roman was miserable, and by the 5th century most Roman emperors were snobbish, over-privileged, incompetent out of touch dipshits. The empire was dying and everybody knew it. Few believed it was worth saving, and nobody wanted to die for a dipshit emperor such as Emperor Dipshit. By 455 AD what was left of the Roman Army consisted of militia units called "limitanei" who acted as border patrolmen far away from Rome. For more complex military operations the Romans were fully dependent on mercenaries and allies. Emperor Dipshit attempted to enlist the help of the Visigoths, but they were like, "LMFAO nooo, you made your bed now lie in it!" I speculate they knew Maximus was a dipshit who was probably gonna get them all killed.

Emperor Dipshit knew it was a hopeless situation, so he made an announcement to the Roman people to flee and save themselves, then he too turned tail and fled. He was spotted by a large group of Roman refugees, who formed a mob and beat him to death. Good riddance. Emperor Dipshit's glorious reign lasted 77 days.

As far as sackings go the sack of Rome in 455 AD wasn't too bad. The Vandals were Christians, so the Pope was able to convince them not to do the more horrible things like rape and murder civilians, or burn down the city. So for the most part the Vandals refrained from bloodshed and arson. However they did take as many Romans into slavery as they could fit on their ships, and they also looted the city of almost everything of value. Even the bronze tiles on the roof of the Temple of Jupiter were pried off and carted away. Also Geiseric carted off Eudocia and married her off to his son Huneric.

The Vandal's sack of Rome in 455 is where we get the term "vandalism" today. Also did I mention that Petronius Maximus was a dipshit?

[diemelusine]

Mosaic of the Emperor Justinian I from the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:PetarM

[octavianiscougarbait]

Octavian is the type of person who would attempt an evil laugh, and would lapse into an asthma attack until Agrippa pinned him down so that Livia could force his inhaler onto him.

[lionofchaeronea]

The Favorites of the Emperor Honorius, John William Waterhouse, 1883

[racefortheironthrone]

How did people become serfs? Like, birth was probably the answer for some, but were other people made serfs after being born in a different social class? And how did it get started, anyway?

Given that the legal default in medieval society was that you were born into the legal status of your (usually male) parent and could not change it, most serfs post the first generation were born serfs.

But as I was suggesting in my post about the Normans, you could be made into a serf through a change to the underlying land tenure that defined your legal status. So for example, you could start out a free churl (wasn't initially a pejorative, but there is something insidious about the way that words for working people get transformed into insults), and then 1066 rolls around.

All of the sudden some collaborator translator is explaining to you what some French-speaking foreign priest is saying about how the new king's new legal system doesn't recognize "churl" as a valid status, please tick the box for either "knight" or "serf," and if you complain there's this French-speaking illiterate violent maniac on horseback backing him up - and the maniac thinks he owns the land your father's bones are buried in and you and your family come with the land, and he'll kill you if you disagree or if he gets bored.

As to how it got started...arguably it all goes back to Diocletian. As a reforming Roman Emperor in the Crisis of the Third Century, Diocletian was having trouble getting his hands on enough hard cash to pay the troops who guarded the borders (who were increasingly led by men with titles that would be later translated as Duke, Count, and Baron, which is a bad sign), so he started paying them in-kind and extracting taxes from the coloni (tenant farmers) in-kind. In order to ensure that revenue from the coloni remained consistent, Diocletian issued an edict that it was illegal for the child of a coloni to hold any other occupation than coloni, and that it was illegal for coloni to leave the land upon which they farmed.

Pretty soon, once the Emperor goes away and there's only the Duke, the Count, and the Baron running the show, the local warlord just cuts out the middle-man and takes the in-kind taxes directly, calls them rent, and asserts that they own the land (or at least the right to rents and taxes from the land) while menacingly sharpening a sword. And hey presto, you've got serfdom!

[dimitrisatticus]

Empress Theodora entering Hagia Soph..

oh wait, it's Alicent.

[roosterarts]

The Cataphracti were elite heavy cavalry employed by the Late Roman Army and, after the fall of the West, the East Roman Army. Armed with long lances and heavy armor, their deployment in the battlefield during the right moment can easily win victory for the Romans.

Featuring:

@temper-temper

[peashooter85]

Why the late Romans wanted their empire to fall

from Maiorianus

[lordmartiya]

What would have happened if the Roman emperor Flavius Julian, better known as Julian the Apostate for renouncing Christianity in favor of Paganism, had decided not to invade Persia, a conflict in which he was killed, and instead dedicated himself to his project to restore the old religion and reform the Empire?

[warllikeparakeetiii]

The Forgotten Giant Disaster Of The Late Roman Empire.

[jovianwishes]

The chances of being "strongly suggested to commit suicide" increase greatly the moment Constantine becomes part of your family

[weaversandspinners]

SPA: La Anunciación en un fragmento de lino encontrado en una tumba en Akhmim (Egipto), quizá parte de una cortina (siglos IV-V d.C). A la izquierda se ve a la Virgen María hilando con su rueca, huso y cesta, mostrándola como ejemplo de la perfecta mujer virtuosa en la Tardoantigüedad cristiana, siguiendo el modelo de la matrona romana anterior.

ENG: The Annunciation on a linen fragment found in a tomb at Akhmim (Egypt), perhaps part of a curtain (4th-5th centuries AD). On the left the Virgin Mary is seen spinning with her spinning wheel, spindle and basket, showing her as an example of the perfect virtuous woman in late Christian antiquity, following the model of the earlier Roman matron.

Victoria and Albert Museum

[lionofchaeronea]

Gold solidus of the Roman emperor Constantius II (r. 337-361 CE). On the obverse, the bust of Constantius, wearing a pearl diadem; on the reverse, the enthroned personifications of Rome and Constantinople, surrounded by the inscription GLORIA REI PUBLICAE (Glory of the Republic). Artist unknown; minted in Thessalonica between 351 and 355. Photo credit: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com

[racefortheironthrone]

How did all the heresies and theological arguments of the Late Roman Empire lead to "the Arab caliphates getting a decent navy and winning the Battle of the Masts"?

This is actually a fascinating story about the nature of the religious world and religious politics in the Late Roman and Byzantine Empires and the Rashidun Caliphate.

Because heresies and theological arguments tended to start at the level of bishops and patriarchs fighting with the bishops and patriarchs of other metropoles (and that filters out to which missionaries were sent where), there were strong regional variations as to which position was in the local majority.

Skipping over the Arian controversy because it's not relevant to the Battle of the Masts, Cyril of Alexandria was the leader of the Monophysite faction ("physis" meaning "nature," i.e Christ has one nature, which tracks with the Council of Nicaea's declaration that he had one "essence"), and his dyophysite (meaning two "natures") rivals were based out of Antioch - and Alexandria and thus Egypt became Monophysite. However, Constantinople and Anatolia were dyophysite and worked to make sure that the Second Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon declared monophysitism a heresy and dyophysitism as Orthodoxy, thus leading to the Chalcedonian Schism.

Following on from this, the emperors Justin II and Justinian I were Orthodox. Now, Justinian tried to end the Schism through the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, but this didn't really work and it remained state policy to persecute Monophysites. However, the empress Theodora was Monophysite and acted as patroness and political defender of Monophysites throughout the empire - which made her very popular in Egypt...and with the Greens in the Hippodrome, who were also Monophysites. Naturally, if the Greens were Monophysite, the Blues were Orthodox, because why not turn your sports rivalry into a religious rivalry and a pseudo-political party system? It's not called the Byzantine Empire because it's simple.

Even though Theodora was a Green, Justinian supported the Blues, which meant that no matter what your sports team or religious views or pseudo-partisanship you could support the imperial family. (Indeed, many historians think that the two at least somewhat arranged their religious and sports affiliations with this in mind.) This worked...up until the Nika riots ended up with Belisarius turning the Imperial army on the sports fans turned revolutionary rioters in the Hippodrome, leading to the deaths of as many as 30,000 people.

And so it went, with Alexandria tending to be the losers in the monoergism vs. dyoergism (does Christ have one "energy" or two?) debate, and the monolethitism vs. dyolethetism (does Christ have one "will" or two?) debate. Notably, these debates saw the Emperors of the time trying to get the Church to adopt a compromise (both monoergism and monothelitism were essentially an attempt by the Emperor Heraclius and his Patriarch to find a new theological formulation that the Alexandrians could live with while pointing urgently in the direction of first the Persians and then the Arabs) and failing due to religious partisans digging in their heels, or Emperors siding violently with one side or the other, ironically in the name of Imperial unity.

And this brings us to the Arab Conquest that gave birth to the Rashidun Caliphate. Now, the Christian population of Alexandria was not exactly thrilled about suddenly being ruled over by Muslim Arabs in 642...but in a genius stroke of enlightened self-interest, the Rashidun Caliphate adopted a policy whereby non-Muslim subjects (dhimmis) would be left alone in terms of religious matters as long as they paid their jizya taxes on non-Muslims (with the idea being to create a financial incentive to convert). While this wasn't the most popular, the Alexandrians realized that having to pay religious taxes and then getting left alone in peace and quiet to be Monophysite was a much better deal than having to pay Byzantine imperial taxes and getting religiously persecuted all the damn time.

This mattered geostrategically, because the Port of Alexandria was one of the largest ports in the Mediterranean, and thus had one of the largest shipyards and a lot of shipbuilders, and a hell of a lot of trained ex-Roman sailors and marines who were heavily Monophysite. These recently-unemployed sailors and marines were very happy to work for the Rashidun Caliphate, especially when the Caliphs started to shift resources into the navy to combat Byzantine dominance on the seas. Thus, only a few years after the Rashidun conquest of Egypt in 642, the Arab navy was suddenly able to fight on equal terms with the Byzantine navy - and then started kicking their ass.

This at last brings us to the Battle of the Masts in 655, where an Arab fleet (crewed mostly by Monophysite Egyptians) of 200 ships under the command of admiral Abu al-A'war came into contact with a Byzantine fleet of 500 ships led by the Emperor Constans II off the coast of Lycia...and smashed it to pieces. According to the historian al-Tabari, it was called the Battle of the Masts because there were rough seas and both fleets lashed themselves together to allow for marine boarding operations, so that soldiers were literally crossing from mast to mast. Constans II supposedly only managed to escape by changing uniforms with one of his subordinates as a disguise.

The defeat was so crippling that Constantinople was brought under siege for the first time by the Rashidun that same year, although that brief siege (the brevity of which is why historians refer to the siege of 674-678 as the "First Arab Siege of Constantinople") was unsuccessful due to a storm that sunk the Arab ships carrying the artillery and siege engines that the land army was counting on. Naturally, the Byzantines attributed this storm and the first Arab civil war that broke out in 655 (which bought the Byzantines some desperately-needed breathing room) to divine intervention.

Just to show how the past is always with us, I wanted to share a bit of a statement by the Coptic Orthodox Church of the Southern United States:

"The Coptic Orthodox Church was accused of being 'Monophysite' in the Council of Chalcedon. The term monophysite comes from two Greek words meaning "single nature". Monophysitism merged Christ's humanity into His divinity so that effectively it meant that in Christ there was only one single nature, a divine nature. This is NOT what the Coptic Orthodox believes. We believe that "Christ's divinity parted not from His humanity, not for a single moment nor a twinkling of an eye" and we recite this statement in every liturgy. As a result, we are Miaphysite and not Monophysite. Miaphysitism (one nature) means the Lord Jesus Christ is perfect human and perfect divine and these two natures are united together without mingling, nor confusion, nor alteration in one nature; the nature of God incarnate."

[rocknrollingtothevoid]

The sentence "hotly debated, with disagreement even among pottery experts" just tickles me a little

[lightdancer1]

The late Roman Empire as referred to here is a specific history and snapshot of the reigns of Roman Emperors from Diocletian to Theodosius I. In this era the Roman Empire adopted the Christian religion, which provided new social phenomena and redefinitions of power and prestige that included in the form of Bishop Ambrose and the Emperor Theodosius's clashes the first preludes to the great medieval Emperor-Church strife in the West and its more muted equivalents in the East.

This is one of the works that does not in actual fact reach to the actual collapse of the Western Empire, though it notes that speaking of the decline of the broader state requires asking why the Byzantine/Eastern half not only withstood the crisis but was able to make the conquests of Justinian and Basil Bulgaroktonos, among others. This is also, incidentally, why ye olde climate change cannot be held to cause the collapse of the Empire as that would indicate the artificial lines chosen between East and West put a force field around the Eastern Empire while only affecting the West. Climate doesn't work that way.

Too, this work raises the important point that the Ancient world had sweeping visions but less than efficient means to ensure they actually happened which one might note also applies to the great Indian and Chinese Empires, as well as the Central Asian states like Bactria and the Kushan Empire. So while the Christian Emperors aspired to a totalitarian vision to sweep away centuries and millennia of older ideas and values the reality was very different and more complicated, and this in turn would evolve further under the early medieval Germanic kingdoms in Western Europe and the surviving Eastern Empire in the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe.

8/10.