{"title":"Caesar Constantius Gallus (351–354 AD) and His Military Policy at the Near East Provinces of the Late Roman Empire","authors":"E. A. Mekhamadiev","doi":"10.15826/adsv.2020.48.003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15826/adsv.2020.48.003","url":null,"abstract":"The paper addresses the military-administrative activities of Constantius Gallus, a nephew of Emperor Constantius II (337–361), who administered the Late Roman Empire’s eastern provinces from 351 to 354 on behalf of Constantius II, holding the title of caesar. Constantius Gallus’ military policies in the east has been studied against the background of Greek and Latin sources along with the Talmudic texts written in Hebrew (in translations into modern Western European languages). This paper is aimed at the analysis of the main directions of Constantius Gallus’ military policy and his reform of the command structure of the troops stationed in the Roman provinces in the Near East in the period in question. This study allowed the author to clarify Constantius Gallus’ contribution to the general development of the Late Roman military organization in the eastern provinces of the Empire. The author has researched Constantius Gallus’ military polices by three topics: the struggle against the Persians in Syria and Mesopotamia; the military campaign against the rebellious Jews in Palestine; and the struggle against the Arab invaders into Arabia Petraea in 353. The research of these issues allows the author to conclude that, in his works, Constantius Gallus followed the separation of powers principle: he did not command the troops, neither he personally conducted military operations or interfered into the course of combat operations. He followed a simpler task of creating the mechanisms providing coordinated relations between commanders of expeditionary and frontier troops, coordinating joint actions of the commanders, and keeping conditions for effective collaboration of different kinds of troops.","PeriodicalId":33782,"journal":{"name":"Antichnaia drevnost'' i srednie veka","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67246163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Caliph Al-Mu‘tasim’s Expedition against Amorion in 838 AD: The Chronology Reconsidered","authors":"P. Kuzenkov","doi":"10.15826/adsv.2020.48.005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15826/adsv.2020.48.005","url":null,"abstract":"This research offers a detailed reconstruction of one of the most famous episodes of Byzantine-Arab relations in the ninth century, the victorious campaign of the Abbasid army led by Caliph al-Mu‘tasim deep into the territory of Byzantium in 838 AD, which ended with the defeat of the army of Emperor Theophilos and the destruction of two most important fortresses in Asia Minor, Ankyra and Amorion, the native place of the ruling dynasty. The accounts of the circumstances and the route of this expedition kept by Arab, Syrian, and Greek sources make it possible to build a detailed chronological map of this military campaign with the use of new methodology created for the project of the comprehensive database of events of Byzantine history. The bringing together chronological and topographic indications of all available sources made it possible not only to make a complete reconstruction of the military operations, but also to revise the date of one of the most important events in the ninth-century history of Byzantium, the battle of Anzen at Dazimon plain, when the Arab-Turkic-Armenian army commanded by Afshin inflicted a crushing defeat on the Byzantine army of Emperor Theophilus, which included the Persian detachments of the ex-Khurramites of Babek. Taking the data in possession into account, there are reasons to date the battle to July 4th, 838 AD. It is proposed to correlate the previously accepted date indicated by at-Tabari, July 22nd, with another key event of the 838 campaign, the destruction of Ankyra. In addition, a comprehensive analysis of the sources makes it possible to clarify the chronology and circumstances of the fall of Amorion, which surrender to the Arabs was resulted by an ethno-religious conflict.","PeriodicalId":33782,"journal":{"name":"Antichnaia drevnost'' i srednie veka","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67246198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Aims of the Byzantine Attack on Gallipoli in 1410","authors":"N. Pashkin","doi":"10.15826/adsv.2020.48.010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15826/adsv.2020.48.010","url":null,"abstract":"This research suggests an interpretation of the reasons behind the Byzantine attack on the Turkish fort of Gallipoli in spring 1410. The citadel that controlled Dardanelles was attacked by a squadron of eight ships. This operation is considered not successful. However, there are reasons to consider that initially Greeks did not plan to take the town. The search for the proofs should be in the sphere of international relations. In the period in question, the Byzantine policy was influenced by contradictions between Venice and Hungarian king Sigismund of Luxembourg concerning Dalmatia. Their interests were also connected with Gallipoli, so the question of the status of the fort could only aggravate their relations. The incipient conflict was dangerous for Byzantium. The Turkish factor was also important in this conflict: one more time, it turned against Byzantium and did not allow it to maintain the peace with the Ottomans concluded in 1403. The Byzantine emperor’s reaction to the crisis can be considered as an attempt of meditation by renewal of the treaty with the Turks, with participation of Western states. The main problem was king Sigismund’s position: a contact with him became necessary. In spring 1410, Byzantine diplomats along with the Pope prepared conditions for the meeting with the Hungarian ambassador in Italy. However, Sigismund’s desirable reaction followed just after the Byzantine attack on Gallipoli. From the analysis of the facts and chronology, there are reasons to conclude that the military operation in question was planned specifically to provoke the king to negotiations, which took place in Bologna in June of the same year.","PeriodicalId":33782,"journal":{"name":"Antichnaia drevnost'' i srednie veka","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67246434","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Joy, Sorrow, Wrath: Some Considerations over the Byzantine People’s Emotionality in Literary Sources","authors":"P. Schreiner","doi":"10.15826/adsv.2020.48.006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15826/adsv.2020.48.006","url":null,"abstract":"The people’s emotions make up a phenomenon not measurable in objective way. This paper’s author has confirmed this conclusion by the cases of accounts on treasons and violent deaths of the emperors as described by several Byzantine historians. This paper addresses the accounts of Theophylaktes Symokattes on the death of Maurice, Michael Psellos and John Zonaras on the revolt against Michael V, and Niketas Choniates on the death of emperor Andronikos I Komnenos. Since the Byzantine literature expressed emotions by rhetoric, the description of events followed the norms of the genre. When the author described certain events, he supposed the reaction from particular individuals or groups and reproduced it by clichés describing the people’s behaviour in specific situations. This paper has analysed linguistic and literary ways the Byzantine historians used to reproduce the people’s emotional reactions on the events related to rebels and murders of the emperors. The analysis of the accounts on the events under study has uncovered that the emotions ascribed to the people were as varied as the author’s position towards the story he was telling. The conclusion has been made that the persons’ emotions always reflected the author’s own emotions.","PeriodicalId":33782,"journal":{"name":"Antichnaia drevnost'' i srednie veka","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67246210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Red Slip Beaker with a Relief Ornamentation from the Eastern Black Sea Area","authors":"Viktoriia A. Nessel","doi":"10.15826/adsv.2020.48.013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15826/adsv.2020.48.013","url":null,"abstract":"From 2014 on, the archaeological excavations of the Roman fort of Apsaros (Gonio, eastern Black Sea area) concentrated in the central area of early buildings, where a large architectural complex from the second half of the first to the first half of the secondcenturies AD was located. This structure probably was a praitorion, the residence of the garrison commander. There was an ancient looters’ pit discovered in one room; it appeared in relation to the construction works in the fort in the late second or early third century AD. The most outstanding find from this pit is a fragmented red slip beaker featuring a relief ornamentation. The beaker comprised an elongated conical body survived to the height of 8.8 cm and a ring-foot measuring 3.8 cm in diameter. The outer side of the vessel is ornamented with two rows of impressed ovals arranged as a chess-board pattern and divided by shallow incised horizontal lines. The vessel is unevenly fired: the clay is bright orange at the top and gray at the bottom. Bright orange slip covers the top of the beaker. No direct analogies to this find are known so far. The red slip beakers of a different shape and vase-like vessels with typical ornamentation of impressed ovals occurred among the products of the workshops from the second to fourth century AD located in northern Bulgaria. Similar vessels, also locally produced, appeared on the sites from the Roman period in the south-western Romania. It is considered that such vessels imitated the glass ware which existed in the same period. Although tumblers and beakers with oval designs on the walls were among the most widespread types of glass ware in Eastern and Northern Europe in the late third and early fourth century, their shape could not be considered the complete parallel to the find under study. The closest similarity appeared among the glass ware from the last quarter of the first to the second half of the second centuries AD, particularly conic beakers with a disc-foot ornamented with elongated ovals. The beaker discovered in Gonio probably dates from a similar period. The quality of the slip and the method of its application indicate that this vessel was possibly produced in the Black Sea area.","PeriodicalId":33782,"journal":{"name":"Antichnaia drevnost'' i srednie veka","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67246618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Late Byzantium in the Works of Margarita A. Poljakovskaja","authors":"T. Kushch","doi":"10.15826/adsv.2020.48.001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15826/adsv.2020.48.001","url":null,"abstract":"This paper commemorates Margarita Adol’fovna Poljakovskaja (1933–2020), the head of the Ural school of Byzantine studies and the respected authority in the history and culture of late Byzantium. The author makes the reader acquainted with Professor Poljakovskaja’s academic biography, the topics of her researches, and the results of her studies in various aspects of the Byzantine history from the thirteenth to fifteenth century. The paper has revealed a few key topics studied by Professor Poljakovskaja: monastic properties in late Byzantine cities; Byzantine rhetoric and epistolography; social and political thought; intellectual life; social structures in the Byzantine society; palace ceremonies and court culture; and the Byzantines’ emotional world and daily life. It has been stated that although Professor Poljakovskaja used abundant and varied methodology produced by historical and philological researches, she preferred the anthropological approach. Her attention concentrated on a person and the person’s notion of the time and self. Reconstructions of intellectual and social life in the period of decline of the Byzantine empire loomed large in the historian’s studies, and the key topic of her researches was the problem of the “person, society, and power”.","PeriodicalId":33782,"journal":{"name":"Antichnaia drevnost'' i srednie veka","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67246158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Secular Official as a Hagiographer: Niketas Magistros and the Life of Theoktiste of Lesbos","authors":"Yu. Mantova","doi":"10.15826/adsv.2020.48.007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15826/adsv.2020.48.007","url":null,"abstract":"Middle Byzantine hagiography abounds with the episodes representing the interaction of saint protagonists with the authorities. Apart of communicating to emperors and empresses, they also deal with the wide range of military and civil bureaucracy representatives in various circumstances. In contrast, it is quite a rare instance when a state official created a hagiographical narrative. The tenth-century Life of St. Theoktiste of Lesbos written by Niketas Magistros provides a unique opportunity to explore the relationship between saints and power not through the inner text space only, but through the outer juxtaposition as well: the text vs the author. The paper focuses on how the author describes his holy heroes and what made Niketas turn to hagiography. Presumably, the text was created to demonstrate to Constantine VII the outstanding abilities of the author who wished to convey to the emperor the idea on his repentance regarding his former mistakes and to plea the emperor to get the permission to return to Constantinople. In order to achieve this aim, Niketas Magistros builds up the images of his characters in a special way. Monk Symeon’s humbleness is represented as the highest human virtue, though the unnamed hunter’s misconduct who tried to steal the deceased Theoktiste’s relics deserves understanding and forgiveness for it is human not to comply with the prudence and piousness.","PeriodicalId":33782,"journal":{"name":"Antichnaia drevnost'' i srednie veka","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67246249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Today, when the Times Are too Late…”: Theodore Metochites on the Strengths and Weaknesses of the Speech Communication Process","authors":"Dmitri I. Makarov","doi":"10.15826/adsv.2020.48.009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15826/adsv.2020.48.009","url":null,"abstract":"This paper suggests a translation from the Byzantine Greek and an interpretation of two passages from Theodore Metochites’ (ca. 1270–1332) works addressing the strength and weakness of our word and the communication based on it. The third translated passage is taken from Ps.-Lucian’s Encomium to Demosthenes, which interprets one of Metochites’ texts. Using examples and reasoning, the megas logothete demonstrated the highs and lows, the strength and weakness of our speech acts (in the meaning of John Searle’s and other modern theories). If Demosthenes’ word was like “hammered” and in this form formed a formidable threat to Philip of Macedonia, despite he defeated the Hellenes at Cheronea, the first third of the fourteenth century Byzantines, intellectuals in particular, were totally unable to make themselves understand each other. To put it another way, there were great difficulties with bringing specific information, feelings or emotions to another person, or, in short, with making clear to someone else all the propositions of the one’s discursive intellect, notwithstanding the fact that one can both explain and mentally represent to him-/herself the matter of reflection. However, one is forceless to turn the above-said into clear-cut utterances. Such a communication crisis within the Byzantine society on the eve of the Hesychasm controversy evidently turned out to be a verge of the general civilization crisis. In this regard, Metochites’ works made a contribution into the overcoming of the crisis, as he constantly summoned to a dialogue between generations of not only his contemporaries, but also of their predecessors and descendants. Discussing the reciprocal unity of word and image/icon, Metochites expressed the Byzantine culture’s in-depth archetypes, particularly its centuries-long creative principle of iconicity in its approach to the Umwelt. This paper suggests parallels to Metochites’ ideas in the Byzantine hagiography of the eighth and fourteenth century (Stephen the Deacon, Theoktistos the Stoudite) and some pieces of reflection to sound in tune with Metochites, which originate from the works of great twentieth-century philosophers Friar Florenskii and Ludwig Wittgenstein.","PeriodicalId":33782,"journal":{"name":"Antichnaia drevnost'' i srednie veka","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67246363","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Byzantine Fourteenth-Century Glazed Vessels Featuring Monograms Excavated in Cherson and the Castle of Cembalo","authors":"N. Ginkut","doi":"10.15826/adsv.2020.48.015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15826/adsv.2020.48.015","url":null,"abstract":"This paper addresses the Byzantine vessels featuring monograms excavated in Cherson and in Cembalo, and their interpretation and significance for the life of the Greek population of the south-western Crimea. So far, archaeological researches discovered 15 vessels made in Byzantium, which showed monograms of the life of saints (“George,” “Michael,” and “Prodromos”), the family name “Palaiologos,” and also code letters “A” (“relic”) and “K.” These vessels were containers for holy water, and in a few cases, plausibly, for myrrh. These vessels were delivered to Cherson and Cembalo as gifts or eulogiai from Constantinople (?), as a part of ideological propaganda. The comparative archaeometric study of the three samples from Cembalo castle in a lab of the University of Lyon revealed one vessel’s similarity with the products of a fourteenth-century pottery workshop discovered in the vicinity of Istanbul. Although two samples more belong to a group different from the said workshop’s products, they still show similar technological parameters. The chronology of the vessels in question lays within the 1320s–1350s in Cherson and from the second half of the fourteenth to the early fifteenth century in Cembalo.","PeriodicalId":33782,"journal":{"name":"Antichnaia drevnost'' i srednie veka","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67246764","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}