SESSIONS
1. Christian Conversion of the Late Antique City
11. Pioneers of Byzantine Studies in America,
III. Reconstructing Byzantium from Beyond its Borders
IV. Archaeological Perspectives on Economy and Society
V. Identity and Ethnicity
VI. Constantinople and its Ceremonies
VII. Byzantium and the West Through the Age of Charlemagne
VIII. Economic Perspectives on Late Antiquity/EarlyByzantium
IX. Byzantines and Latins: Friends and Foes
X. Theology in an Eastern Context
XI. Prosopography and History
XII. Word and Image as Instruments of the Faith
XIII. Historiography and Learning in Late Antiquity
XIV. Byzantium Through Eastern Eyes
XV. The Byzantines at Home
XVI. Vision and Revision of Works of Art
XVII. Methods of Warfare and Diplomacy
XVIII. Churches and the Builders' Intentions
I. CHRISTIAN CONVERSION OF THE LATE ANTIQUE CITY Chair:
Peter Kaufmann (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
l. Carolyn S. Snively (Gettysburg College)
"Burials and City Walls: the Case of Late Antique Athens"
2. Beatrice Chevallier Caseau (Paris IV - Sorbonne)
"Violence in Late Antiquity: A Bias of our Sources?"
3. Richard M. Rothaus (St. Cloud State University)
"Mutilation of Sculpture in Late Antiquity: Images and Power"
Burials and City Walls: the Case of Late Antigua Athens
Carolyn S. Snively (Gettysburg College)
Athens in the Late Antique period had two rings of defensive walls. Between 254 and 260 A.D. the Emperor Valerian built a wall on the foundations of the old Themistoklean circuit, with an extension to the east. This wall did not keep out the Herulians in 267. Toward the end of the 3rd century, a new wall, known as the Poet-Herulian wall, was constructed to enclose a much smaller area north of the Acropolis and, an recent investigations have shown, the south slope of the Acropolis at least as far east as the Theater of Dionysos (AR 1980, B1, 18-20). It thus protected the Odeion of Herodes Atticus and the space north of the Stoa of Eumenes including the Asklepieion but not the Theater. The dates of the renovations and repairs to these two fortifications, the longer circuit of the Valerian wall and the shorter one of the Poet-Herulian wall, are not all certain. The Valerian wall was probably repaired in the late 4th century if not before and was certainly strengthened in the 6th century. The Post-Herulian wall remained in use as a defensive wall of the city until the construction of the Rizokastro in the early 13th century (DAR 1987-88, 342). Thus, regardless of their state of repair, both walls continued to stand as prominent features of the Late Antique urban landscape.
Plotting of known burials on a plan of Athens shows that the majority of burials during the 5th and 6th centuries took place outside the Valerian wall, e.g., in the Kerameikos, along the south side of the city where two cemetery churches were built, and on the southwest slops of Lykavettos hill, where the tomb of Bishop Elimatios was discovered by chance in 1881. Relatively few graves have been discovered inside the city, e.g., a group on Lekka street, two just outside the eastern line of the old Themietoklean wall, and several tombs in or beside the Parthenon on the Acropolis.
The major exception to the location of necropoleis outside the Valerian wall was the cemetery spread across the south slope of the acropolis from the Odeion of Herodes Atticus to the Odeion of Perikles. The whole cemetery has often been assumed to date from the Late Antique period, possibly as early as the late 3rd or 4th century. It obviously lay far inside the Valerian wall and, given the new information about the line of the PostHerulian wall, partially inside the latter one as well. Examination of the scraps of published evidence for the excavation of the graves on the south slope, however, now suggests that those in the Odeion of Perikles and the Theater of Dionysos were no earlier than the end of the 5th century and that the tombs found in the Asklepeion were Byzantine in date. I.e., burial did not begin on the south elope until the end of the 5th or the 6th century at which time those graves respected and were located outside the Poet-Herulian wall.
The conclusion to be drawn from this and other examples is that in Athens the prohibition against intramural burial was still generally being observed--with fascinating exceptions--in the 5th and 6th centuries. It remains unclear why the Athenians who buried their dead on the south slope of the Acropolis in the 6th century had begun to see this particular stretch of the PostHerulian wall as the boundary of their city.
Violence in Late Antiquity: a Bias of our Sources?
Beatrice Chevallier Caseau (Paris IV-Sorbonne)
In recent years, some historians have down played the impact of religious violence and in particular the violence against pagan buildings and statues. It is indeed difficult, when faced with a broken statue, to evaluate the causes of the damage. Broken noses, missing heads or hands can be the result of earthquakes and of subsequent neglect. However, literary sources, in particular Saints' Lives, and Church histories, report idol smashing as a recurrent event during Late Antiquity. Is this simply a bias of our sources, a narrative where iconoclasm is just a symbol for the victory of Christianity over polytheistic cults? Or is it the narrative of events that can be traced on the ground by archaeological data? The purpose of this paper is to reevaluate what would constitute criteria which might distinguish between acts of iconoclasm and damage caused by natural causes. It is possible to draw same conclusions from different examples: statues of Athena found at Palmyra and studied by B. Gassowska ; bas-reliefs at the temple of Philae studied by P. Nautin; statues discovered under the walls of different buildings in Athens or in Aphrodisias; and finally temples that show traces of deliberate destruction (such as the temple of Apollo at Delphi). In those different examples, we find evidence for the selective destruction or humiliation of religious objects which cannot have been caused by natural phenomena.
All pagan statues or temples did not suffer the same fate, and recent studies have insisted on the preservation of works of an at the same period. An evaluation of religious violence during Late Antiquity should therefore attempt to keep a balance between the two contradictory attitudes towards religious objects that seem to have coexisted.
Mutilation of Sculpture in Late Antiquity: Images and Power
Richard M. Rothaus (St. Cloud State University)
In the ancient and late-antique world, sculpture was much more than just physical representation. Like all visual images, sculpture and statuary were polysemous. Not only did individuals perceive them differently, different social groupings (often quite fluid) could understand statuary to serve different functions. Of particular interest here are changing reactions and responses to sculpture in a period of religious tensions and transformations. Violent reactions to sculptural imagery are well documented in the literary and archaeological records.
A common perception in late-antiquity (and indeed much of the pre-modern world) was that statues possess powers, or even that daimones possessed statues. Christian polemicists and some individuals saw statues as a locus of illegitimate powers and thus reacted violently, in both word and deed; non-hostile individuals saw statues as objects of legitimate power and responded with suitable veneration. The hostile and sympathetic individuals had more in common than in difference, however. They all agreed that statuary held powers; they disagreed on the nature of those powers. It is because statues did contain power that they were a focus of attention, and this attention made them powerful tools and objects of sometimes violent contention.
Many, but not all, scholars have accepted that "pagan" statuary was either ignored, or often 'Christianized" for re-use with some interpretatio Christiana. In an examination of the literary and archaeological evidence, multiple reactions are evident. The evidence points to a variety of expiatory and perhaps exorcising rituals. These include ritual mutilation, ritual disposal through burial, and ritual exorcism(?) through the application of the cross. Literary evidence for such activity exists in such authors as Julian, Palladas, Sozomen, John Chrysostom, and the Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai. More revelatory, and frequently ignored or unnoticed by archaeologists, are examples of mutilation and ritual disposal from the Eastern Mediterranean.
The importance of this material extends beyond the new light shed on the status and treatment of sculpture in late antiquity. The violent conflict, often between Christian and non-Christian interpretations, reveals much about the shared belief basis of the blending Christian and non-Christian populations of the late-antique Mediterranean. The reactions indicate the vitality of non-Christian devotion and ritual, and the dialogue is defined in terms of traditional reactions to imagery and power. The conflict was not so much between two different religious traditions, but rather a disagreement within a common religious tradition.
II. PIONEERS OF BYZANTINE STUDIES IN AMERICA, II
Chair: John W. Barker (University of Wisconsin, Madison )
l. Demetrios J. Constantelos (The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey)
"Peter Charanis: A Pioneer in Byzantine Studies"
2. Rudi Lindner (The University of Michigan)
"Paul J. Alexander: `There Is No One Whose Loss Would Be A More Serious Blow"'
3. Angeliki E. Laiou (Dumbarton Oaks)
"Robert Lee Wolff (1915-1980)"
4. George P. Majeska (University of Maryland)
"George Soulis and the Slavic Connection"
Peter Charanis: A Pioneer in Byzantine Studies
Demetrios J. Constantelos (The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey)
The thesis of the present paper is that the late Peter Charanis (b. 15 August 1908, d. 23 March 1985) of Rutgers University (1938-1976) was a leading pioneer of Byzantine studies in the United States. My essay provides information about his family background, his early education, and concentrates on three areas of his career which confirm that Charanis deserves the epithet "pioneer," and the reputation as one of the founders of Byzantine studies in the Americas.
For more than 38 years Charanis was a dedicated teacher of history--the history of the Byzantine Empire in particular. In his long and creative teaching career, he gave priority to quality instruction and the education of students and the public. From 1938, when he was appointed instructor at Rutgers University, his alma mater, to 1976, when he retired as Voorhees Distinguished Professor of history from the same institution, he had introduced thousands of students, both undergraduates and post-graduates to the study of the history and civilization of the Byzantine world. His Socratic method, his vast knowledge of his subject, his sense of humor and his love for his students made him a popular instructor, remembered to the present day by those who attended his lectures.
Charanis' commitment to effective instruction was accompanied with his emphasis on quality scholarly research and writing. In terms of originality and topics that attracted his attention, Charanis was also a pioneer. His high scholarly standards is revealed in several of his monographs which he preferred over synthetic texts and large volumes. He wrote on social, institutional, demographic and religious themes. Because of his unabated commitment to the study of original sources, he encouraged and helped Rutgers and the Gardner Sage of New Brunswick Theological Seminary Libraries to acquire many sources of Byzantine historiography (literary, papyrological, numismatic, epigraphic) and periodicals.
The third area of activity indicating that Peter Charanis deserves to be known as a pioneer in Byzantine studies is his seminars and the training of eighteen scholars most of whom teach in several institutions all over the United States. No less significant is his initiative to establish the Rutgers Byzantine Series, which produced several scholarly volumes on various aspects of Byzantium's history and civilization. Furthermore, the present paper takes into account his extensive correspondence with leading Byzantine scholars in Europe and elsewhere with whom he exchanged ideas on the problems and issues of the Byzantine studies discipline. Charanis' epistolography confirms his reputation as an international scholar.
It is to the credit of pioneers such as Peter Charanis that Byzantine studies in the United States emerged from the obscurity of the 1930s to an established and respected field of inquiry and study in American institutions of higher learning in the 1990s.
Paul J. Alexander: "There Is No One Whose Loss Would Be A More Serious Blow"
Rudi Lindner (The University of Michigan)
Paul Alexander was born in Berlin in 1910 and died in Berkeley in 1977. Trained in the law at Berlin, Freiburg i. Br., Hamburg, and Paris, he studied ancient history with Arthur Boak al Michigan and obtained a Ph.D. at Harvard in 1940. One of the first junior fellows at Dumbarton Oaks, he became a research analyst at the Office of Strategic Services and, after the war, began as a lecturer at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, where he rose to professor. After a short period at Brandeis, he returned to Michigan as Boak's successor and, after ten years in Ann Arbor, taught at Cal for the final decade of his life. To say that his colleagues held him in very high esteem does insufficient justice to the record.
An examination of Paul Alexander's professional career and life as a scholar affords us insight into a number of developments in the history of a humanistic field in the U.S. Twice a refugee, twice changing fields, Alexander was among these younger German Jews who made a new life it.. a new world. His path paralleled not that of the older generation of emigres but those (mostly scientists) whose careers began here. His choices (to leave Dumbarton Oaks, for example) made him more an undergraduate teacher than a prolific researcher, and the rhythm of his work offers interesting contrasts to present-day practice. The movement of his interests from law to history to literature did not find emulators, and in fact the nature of his published scholarship moved away from the trend of his contemporaries. Finally, his ascent, from Dumbarton Oaks to the OSS, Hobart and William Smith, Brandeis, Michigan, and finally to Cal, represents changing expectations as well, as did his residencies in Rome.
Now that the generation of emigres from central Europe is passing, to be replaced by their students and very different traditions of scholarship, it is appropriate to identify, first, the nature of the early influences on them, second, those American traditions they appropriated, and third, their contribution to the growth of their chosen field in their chosen land. A final question, of course, is the extent to which their contributions affect the work of today. As a scholar who obtained degrees both in Europe and the U.S.A., Paul Alexander melded together a number of traditions, and how those shaped his work, teaching, and legacy continues to fascinate.
Robert Lee Wolff (1915-1980)
Angeliki E. Laiou (Dumbarton Oaks)
Professor of History at Harvard, Robert Lee Wolff had a very broad area of expertise, which included the modern Balkans and Russia. During his long period of tenure, he trained a large number of Byzantinists and experts in Balkan history; he also taught the Byzantine field to a number of western medievalists. To his students he imparted a concern for precision, as well as a sense of the importance of broad historical contexts. I consider him one of the most influential teachers of Byzantine history in the U.S.A.
George Soulis and the Slavic Connection
George P. Majeska (University of Maryland)
George Christos Soulis was a special scholar in many different ways. An ardently patriotic Greek deeply devoted to Greek culture of various periods, he chose to view the Byzantine Empire with the eyes of what others would have called "an outsider." But to Soulis, Byzantium was not a state with geographic frontiers, but rather a Weltanschauung, a shared set of values that knew no geographic or political boundaries, but could be recognized by its visible cultural fruits. That was why he was so successful in interpreting not only Serbian history, but also the history of other pieces of the medieval Balkans -be the pieces Serres or Tziganes. Soulis conceived the Byzantine Empire as a great mosaic with indistinct (and often changing) edges. He felt that illuminating now one area of the mosaic, now another, would eventually improve our perception of the whole composition. Too often people concentrated on the center and never noticed the periphery and thereby missed basic relationships that made the mosaic work together as a unified composition. He tried to change these age-long habits, often purposely looking at the center from the edges of the composition.
Soulis chose to work in America where he would be free to view Byzantium from whatever perspective he chose, even from the perspective of the geographic outsider of the Byzantine core or from the perspective of the provincial or ethnic edges of the polity. Someone who had the special sensitivities of a cultured Greek patriot and could view the Empire 'of the Romans" simultaneously from the Slavic provinces of a still recognizably Byzantine world had much to offer modem scholarship.
Mirabile dictu, George Soulis managed to convey some of this vision of the Byzantine Balkans to a few ruddy scrubbed undergraduates in the heart of Hoosier land, a very unlikely place to find a cosmopolitan Epirote. I am not sure how many of the facts or how much of the explanation that Soulis tried so hard to gel across to them they will remember. What they doubtless all remember of Soulis' lessons, however, is three things: that all history is based on primary sources, even in undergraduate courses; that drawing historical conclusions is hard and painful work; and that it is impossible not to work your hardest for that demonstrably decent professor up there.
III. RECONSTRUCTING BYZANTIUM FROM BEYOND ITS BORDERS
Chair; Constantine N. Tsirpanlis (American Institute for Patristic Studies, Inc.)
l. S. Peter Cowe (University of California at Los Angeles)
"New Light on the Evolution of the Byzantine Coronation Liturgy"
2. Nicolas Schidlovsky (New York City)
"Byzantine Chant and the Early Slavic Sources"
3. Thalia Gouma-Peterson (The College of Wooster)
"Autonomy and Control in the Early History of the Convent of the Apostle Andrew"
New Light on the Evolution of the Byzantine Coronation Liturgy
S. Peter Cowe (University of California at Los Angeles)
Tracing the development of this rite has been hasardous because of the paucity of direct information concerning its structure and the vast hiatus separating the extant sources. Basically the two fixed points in any investigation are the early texts published by Arranz from the euchologion and the description of the fifteenth century form by Symean of Thessalonica. The disparities between them have given rise to various speculations, none more so than that of the origin and circumstances of adoption of the ritual of unction which is absent from the earlier ceremony.
During the Middle Byntine period the Armenians re-established a kingdom under the powerful Bagraud dynasty, which spanned the period 884-1045. Donor sculptures and manuscript illuminations executed during this era indicate contrastive influences from the Empire and Caliphate as models for the trappings of royalty. However, very little research has been carried out on the form of coronation liturgy in use at that time. Surmclian has edited extracts of a rite preserved in the catholicate of Sis. However, as I have demonstrated elsewhere, that text derives from the Mainz Ordo for the investiture of the kings of Germany, which was adapted in 1198/9 for the coronation of Lewon 1 of the Armenian state in Cilicia.
More recent investigations have unearthed different recensions of an earlier form whose affinities with the Byzantine configuration of prayers and gesture are so close as to suggest the latter as its prototype. This paper presents the data in support of such an interpretation and proceeds to draw certain tentative conclusions. In particular, it will argue that the Bagratid Armenian rite confirms indirect evidence adduced by Walter and Nicol to the effect that unction already formed part of the Byzantine rite in the eleventh century and possibly earlier. These cumulatively militate against Ostrogorsky's view that this ritual was borrowed from the Latin Empire and first applied at die accession of Theodore Lascaris in 1208.
Byzantine Chant and the Early Slavic Sources
Nicolas Schidlovsky (New York City)
To what extent (lid the Byzantine aesthetic, as it spread through Eastern Europe and Russia, assume local features? And, does the evidence we have perhaps reflect a balance no longer visible in the Creek sources alone? While both are important questions, the second is paramount especially in the quest for "origins", the central problem in chant history East and West.
Emerging as it does within this vital context, the rich body of early Slavic musical documentation offers particular challenges dealing with methods of transmission, the provenance of the notation, the relationship of melody and text in view of the translation of original Greek hymns into Old Church Slavonic, and the fundamental expansion of Byzantine usage into what might be termed a translingual liturgical melos-all issues resilient among specialists for several generations now. But there is still a substantial task to he accomplished before the subject can be brought to bear with any certain impact in the broad perspective.
Medieval Russian sources of the sticherarion offer a marked case in point. Dating mostly from the pre-Mongol period as far back as the 12th century, these rare holdings in the libraries of Moscow and St. Petersburg suggest tire need to test the possibility of new windows on the evolution of a quintessential Byzantine musical and hymnographic complex.
Autonomy and Control in the Early History of the Convent of the Apostle Andrew in Kefalonia
Thalia Gouma-Peterson (The College of Wooster)
The Convent of the Apostle Andrew at Melapidia of Peratata in Kefalonia has a continuous history since 1587. It also has extraordinarily rich archival records, a large part of which survive despite the three major earthquakes of 1860, 1866, and 1953, the latter of which destroyed most of the island and left the convent in ruins. [The convent's notanal acts and other documents are now in the Historical Archives of Argostoli. A number of them have been published by Protopresbyteros Konstantine Geles, fern Mom Ap. Andreou Kepahallinias (Athens, 1986).] The convent's miraculous relic, the foot of St. Andrew, also survived, and the convent was restored after the last earthquake, and has continued on to the present (it currently has five nuns).
The convent's most famous nun, Romyla Tsigara, joined in 1644 (presumably at a young age) and officially became a nun in 1654. The document of her induction survives, as do those of many other nuns, ranging from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century.
Romyla's fame is due in part to her family's wealth and high social standing. Her father, Zotos Tsigaras, a Venetian citizen originally from Ioannina, was a protospatharios and brother-in-law of Prince Peter of Moldovlachia, as is noted on his portrait in woodcut, preserved in the convent's archives. When his daughter officially became a nun he gave to the convent, according to the record of her induction, a gift of 1000 realia, the equivalent of a small fortune. He, his wife, and daughter are represented in a contemporary oil painting, standing beneath the Virgin and Child flanked by Sts. Cosmas and Damian floating in a bank of clouds. The painting, an example of the western style perfected by Cretan icon painters active in Venice during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, bears an inscription specifying that it was dedicated by the parents on the occasion of their daughter Rozane's acceptance of the "angelic schema, having changed her name to Romyla the Nun." According to other records Romyla made beautiful embroideries and gave many precious gifts to the church of the convent, including a crystal case for the relic of St. Andrew.
Ironically, it is during the time that its most famous nun joined the female community that the convent lost the status of semi-autonomy it had enjoyed since its refounding in 1587. In 1653 Ieremias, the bishop of Kefalonia, appointed Leontios
Petrikios abbot of the monastery. Though abbesses continued to exist alongside the abbots, the real decision-making power in both religious and worldly matters had, by then, been removed f rom their hands.
In this paper I will examine the circumstances, directions, and spirit of the refounding of the convent as recorded in the "Ktetorikon of the Convent of the Apostle Andrew" m 1587 and pursue the gradual shifts in the power structure during the next seven decades as they can be gleaned from surviving documents of appointments.
IV. ARCHAEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ECONOMY AND SOCIETY
Chair: Sharon Gerstel (University of Maryland)
1. James Russell (University of British Columbia)
"The Reign of Zeno I (the Isaurian): the View from Isauria"
2. Frederick M. Hocker (Institute of Nautical Archaeology/Texas A&M University)
"A Middle Byzantine Shipwreck Near Bozburun, Turkey: A Preliminary Report"
3. Robert Ousterhout (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne)
"The Byzantine Monuments of Imbros"
The Reign of Zeno I (the Isaurian): the View from lsauria
James Russell (University of British Columbia)
Written sources for the Isaurian Emperor Zeno (474-491) are brief but consistent is their hostility. He and his entourage of fellow countrymen were viewed as barbaric interlopers. Just as offensive to the Orthodox majority of the capital was Imo's attempt, embodied in his Henotikon of -182, to reconcile the opposing forces of Orthodoxy and Monophysitism within the church.
When viewed from his own homeland, however, Zeno's reign assumes a very different character. Mango and Gough were the first to associate four famous Isaurian churches (Alahan, Dag Pazari, Meryemlik ' Korykos) as part of a (amnion building program promoted by Zeno. Gough also identified in the several mosaic depic tions of the Peaceful kingdom in churches of Isauria a symbolic image of the reconciliation that Zeno sought to achieve ill the Henotikon. Subsequent discoveries (e.g. a further Peaceful kingdom at Anemurium datable to the late fifth century) tend to confirm these theories.
Improvements attributable to Zeno's reign in Isauria are not limited to ecclesiastical works, however. It is evident that Zeno or officials closely associated with him were responsible also for secular projects as well. These include aqueducts at Elaioussa Sebaste and at Zenonopolis, Zeno's own birthplace, and a bath-building at Anemurium. Of greatest interest is an inscription from a recently discovered city identifiable as Nephelion, located on the Isaurian coast 50 kilometers south-east of Alanya. The text takes the form of an acclamation in honor of the Emperor Zeno and an unknown comes whose name has been erased, expressing the gratitude of the inhabitants for Zeno's generosity in renewing the city. Presumably it had suffered damage in the Isaurian rebellion of the early years of his reign. A review of the evidence of Zeno's benevolence towards his Isaurian homeland, both ecclesiastical and secular, thus provides a very different impression of the Emperor from the largely negative account found in the "official" record of his reign.
A Middle Byzantine Shipwreck Near Bozburun, Turkey: A Preliminary Report
Frederick M. Hocker (Institute of Nautical Archaeology/Texas A&M University)
This paper wilt present results of the first two seasons of excavation on a Middle Byzantine shipwreck off the southwest coast of Turkey, near Bozburun. Preliminary indications are that the wreck, a merchant vessel approximately 20 meters tong and carrying between 1000 and 2000 small amphoras of possible Crimean origin, dates to the end of the ninth or beginning of the tenth century. The well-preserved cargo and hull should offer a unique opportunity to investigate not only the details of maritime trade and technology in this period, but should also contribute to the understanding of broader trends in this turbulent period.
The ninth century saw the revival of Byzantine military fortunes in Anatolia, but the loss of strategic maritime outposts in Crete and Sicily. The Moslem occupation of Crete, at the mouth of the Aegean, posed a particularly worrisome problem, as long-distance maritime trade, just recovering from the tong depression that followed the disasters of the seventh century, was at risk even in "home" waters. The degree to which ships traveling in these waters prepared for their own defense should be an indicator both of the overall level of risk expected by merchants, and their confidence in the Navy's ability to maintain open routes. The route of the ship, wrecked at the mouth of one of several fortified harbors on the southwestern corner of Anatolia, may also indicate whether it was engaged in supplying the garrisons maintained in this period.
Analysis of other Byzantine cargos, from seventh- and eleventh-century wrecks, has shown that during the intervening centuries the nature of collection and distribution mechanisms for bulk cargos had developed significantly. The standardization of containers from widely varying sources in three- and fivepound units by the eleventh century points to either increased state involvement in trade or growing economic organization, perhaps even a proto-capitalistic approach to commerce. The Bozburun amphoras, from the earliest identified wreck of the Middle Byzantine period, should offer important insight into the degree to which this trend had developed at the beginning of the economic recovery. Small finds, particularly coins and weights, have, in other Byzantine wrecks, often provided clear indications of the degree of interaction of Byzantine traders with other cultures, even their putative enemies.
Details of ship construction, such as the materials used and the methods of assembly, provide important clues to resource usage and technical developments in an important craft tradition. In a broader sense, ships reflect in their size, configuration, and sailing qualities, the political and economic tenor of the times. In troubled times, people build smatter ships and emphasize speed to escape pirates and foreign warships. In stable economic and political times, larger, sturdier ships are a better investment.
The Bozburun ship provides, in a sense, a snapshot of its times. This report will focus on the range of material available for analysis and preliminary conclusions to be drawn from the most obvious features, as well as an evaluation of the geographical considerations affecting the ship's rote and route.
The Byzantine Monuments of Imbros
Robert Ousterhout (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
There is virtually no recorded history for the north Aegean island of Imbros (now Gokgeada) during the Byzantine period.
However, the position of the island would have been strategic for any maritime activities in the Aegean: it is located just outside the Dardanelles and within sight of Tenedos, Lemnos, and Samothrace. The position of the island has also been critical to its modern history. It is part of Turkey, and until recently, it had limited access as a military zone.
Because of new threats to the island's history caused by tourism and development, I undertook a survey of its Ancient and Byzantine remains in 1995 in conjunction with Dr. Windried Held of the German Archaeological Institute. This is the first systematic attempt at recording the monuments of Imbros in more than a century. We are grateful to the Turkish Ministry for permission. our efforts were concentrated around the ancient port of Kastro (now Kalekby), and in future seasons we will survey other areas of the island.
In this short communication I will present a portion of the 160 objects and sites inventoried in our first season. Most are completely unpublished. From these random survivals, we are beginning to be able to reconstruct a continuous presence on the island through the Byzantine period.
Early Christian period: 1. Foundations and mosaic fragments from a basilica at Kardamos Bay. 2. Six matching Ionic capitals built into other buildings. 3. Two fine Impost capitals, one at the Kale Motel, another in the narthex of the post-Byzantine church of H. Marina.
Middle Byzantine period: 1. A matching set of marble from the same church, now in the garden of the Belediye at Merkez (Panagia). 2. Two fine closure slabs with geometric patterns in the floor of H. Marina.
Late Byzantine period: 1. The fortress at Kastro. 2. Three dated inscriptions from the early 15th century.
V. IDENTITY AND ETHNICITY
Chair: Elisaveta Todorova (University of Cincinnati)
l. Ronald J. Weber (University of Texas at El Paso)
"Conceptualizing the Frontier in Late Antiquity"
2. David Olster (University of Kentucky)
"Mixed-up Natures and Customs? Christians and the `Third Genos"'
3. Stephen H. Rapp, Jr. (The University of Michigan)
"The Impact of Heraclius' Invasion of Caucasia Upon Medieval `Georgian' Self-identity"
4. Annetta Ilieva (Independent Scholar)
"`Tervel of Bulgaria and Gliavanos the Khazar Took Their Places There on Many Occasions"'
5. John V.A. Fine (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)
"Did the South Slavs have Ethnicity in the Middle Ages?"
Conceptualizing the Frontier in Late Antiquity
Ronald J. Weber (University of Texas at El Paso)
In criticizing Theodor Mommsen's and Edward Luttwak's theories of the "grand strategy" of the Roman Empire, Benjamin Isaac comments that it is impossible to imagine that "the Romans were capable of realizing in practice what they could not define verbally." Close reading of Roman military writers confirms that the verbalized concepts of Roman military deployment centered on operations and tactics exclusive of any precise, far reaching strategic goals. It is the contention of this paper that from A.D. 300 to 650 Roman ideas about the frontier and frontier defense exhibit the same conceptual failures manifest in the military accounts. Focusing on the fourth and fifth centuries, this paper will review several writers from Late Antiquity who perceived the frontiers from an intellectual framework considerate of the past as the material of the present, heedless of an overall strategy reaching into the distant future.
The chief examples are how Roman ideas of space and time hindered long-range planning. In Ammianus and Priscus as well as the edicts of Justinian the amorphous nature of the edges of the Empire was both a threat and an opportunity, a parallel of traditional Stoic cosmology. The Stoics conceptualized the outer regions of the inhabited world as a disordered sphere, full of uncertainties for Romans living in the known world. There was no plan for dealing with the unknown. Moreover, speculation about time offered no more precision about when the Romans could encounter the unknown. In the first century, Seneca had formulated the concept that the past provided a vague perspective on the secrets of the future. However, unlike the past, the future was basically unknowable, and one could not make progress against the unknown.
only the past offered any possibilities. For example, the Emperor Julian saw his Persian expedition as an extension of eastern policies initiated by Trajan, not as an act that provided for the future. For the same reason, Ammianus criticized Jovian for betraying tradition when he surrendered Roman territory after Julian's sudden death. Both cases demonstrate a lack of consideration for the future in determining policy. Combine this with the personal nature of Roman politics, and it is clear that the Romans had serious intellectual handicaps to the formulation of a long-term, forward looking frontier concept. This failure to conceptualize does not fully explain the failure of the Roman frontier. It is simply one aspect, seldom considered, but still revealing of the basic Roman assumptions about the frontier.
Mixed-up Natures and Customs? Christians and the "Third Genos"
David Olster (Univ. of Kentucky)
One of the ethnographic problems that confronted the firstcentury geographer Strabo was how gene interacted when the territory of one was settled by another. Alexandria, where Greeks, Egyptians and foreign mercenaries intermingled, produced a population of migades or "half-breeds" whose confused government reflected their confused breeding. Nonetheless, he continued that despite the Greek settlers' intermingling with the natives, they remained Greek by descent (or by nature), and enough of the "custom" or "habit" [ethos] of their Greek nature remained so that the city did not altogether devolve into anarchy. The relationship between nature and custom in the genus implied by Strabo here was moreover tilted heavily toward nature: regardless of custom the stamp of ancestral descent remained. Although Judaeans were a mixed tribe [phylon mikton] of Phoenicians and Egyptians, whose customs were unlike either, Strabo could still maintain that "though the inhabitants are mixed up thus, the most prevalent of the accredited reports ... represents the ancestors of the present Judaeans, as they are called, as Egyptians." For Strabo, different gene could produce constitutions and customs that "were mixtures of both barbarian and Greek laws" -- and usually the worse for being mixed -- but could not produce a mixed nature. Ultimately, intermarriage between gene could not produce a third genos. While Strabo could identify mixed customs, "We cannot call mixed any of these gene ... for even if they had become mixed, still the predominant element has made them either Hellenes or barbarians; I know nothing of a third genos that is mixed [mikton]."
In the light of Strabo's denial that a "third genos" could exist, it is interesting to note that about one humdred-fifty years after Strabo, a third genos announced itself to the world. Clement of Alexandria, Psuedo-Cyprian and Tertullian proudly referred to the Christians as a third genus or genus, and witnessed, furthermore, that pagans would shout "third genus" to insult Christians as they entered the stadium to be martyred. The only modern scholar who has studied this peculiar Christian expression was Harnack, who concluded (without using classical sources) that "third genos" was a metaphor for "third religion:" the others were Judaism and paganism. More recent scholars who have briefly addressed the question of Christianity's relationship with classical ethnography have added little to Harnack's initial contribution. This paper will follow how this odd expression migrated from Greek ethnography to Christian apologetics, and will develop the cultural links between Christians and pagans that informed the Christian adoption and adaptation of classical ethnographic rhetoric.
The Impact of Heraclius' Invasion of Caucasia Upon Medieval "Georgian" Self-Identity
Stephen H. Rapp, Jr, (The University of Michigan)
In 627 the Khazar mercenary troops of Heraclius sacked the K'ari'velian (Iberian. or eastern "Georgian") city of Tp'ilisi (Tp'ilisi, Tinis) and murdered Step'anoz 1, the local presiding prince. Step'anoz, unlike his father Guaram kuropalales, had refused recognize the emperor as his sovereign. Upon Step anoz's removal, Heraclius installed a proByzantine prince in a bid to secure the loyalty of the Christian K' art'velians so as to use them as tools in the defense of the eastern frontier. Although this attempt was checked by the subsequent Islamic domination of Caucasia, nevertheless, from thus moment the K'ari'velian presiding princes customarily associated themselves with the Byzantine Empire, culminating in the role of the K'an velian Bagratids from the end of the eighth century.
Although no contemporary Georgian account survives, three later Georgian texts prominently featured Hemline campaign: Ps.-luansher (ca. 800), Sumbat Davit'is-dze (11th c.), and the derivative Roval List I (11th c.). For a single episode to be addressed in multiple works was exceedingly rare in pre-modem Georgian historiography, and this circumstance demonstrates the significam:e of this event even among later historians.
The medieval Georgian historical tradition regarded Heraclius' appearance in K'art' ti as the moment when the local nobility and rating strata were, for the first time, squarely confronted with the Byzantine notion that they should necessarily submit to the emperor, the self-proclaimed head of all Christendom. To be sure, the K'art'vehan monarchy had been Christianized already in the fourth century; yd, with the exception of having a religious affiliation with ' Rome/Byzantium, the K'arl'velian realm remained part and parcel of the Persian commonwealth. Only with the appearance of a Byzantine emperor within the confines of K'art' ti itself were the local elites compelled m take a stand on K'art' ti's precise relationship with Byzantium.
The earliest Georgian account of Heraclius' invasion, that of Ps.-Juansher (along with the preceding Life of Vaxtang Gorgasali [also ca. 800], demonstrated this "crisis" of medieval Georgian self-identity. In fact, The Life of Vaxtang Gorgasali telescoped this crisis onto King Vaxiang I (ca. 447-ca. 522), who, in the course of his hagiographicallymodeled biography. transferred his ultimate loyalty from the Persians to the Christian Byzantines. Yet, Vaxtang was not made to renounce his - or Karl ti's -- ancient Persian heritage, for in the author's estimation it was possible for K'arl' li to be Christian and Persian and K'art'velian. It should be said that this syncretism was not adequately explained andjustified in the text. In any event, Ps.-Juansher, whose brief tract constituted a continuation to the biography of Vaxtang, was the earliest Georgian historian to provide substantial details about Byzantine politics; moreover, in his work we may detect a nascent attempt to distance Christian K'art'li from the Persian world. Subsequently, Bagratidera Georgian authors (from the 10th c.) consciously attempted to suppress K'art'ti's Persian heritage and instead looked towards Byzantium for models of rulership. Nevertheless, Persia's influence over the Karl'vehans continued, albeit in shrouded terms; e.g.: social organization continued to be more tike Sasanid Persia than Byzantium (after C. Toumanoff: early Bagrafid names were based upon Persian (although they were said to be Hebrew according to the Armenian historian Movses Xorenac'i), and N. Adom' and Toumanoff have determined that the Bagratids themselves were originally a Perso-Armenian family, and not Jewish as they later claimed
In sum, the infusion of Byzantine ideology was uneven and gradual in the Caucasian periphery. The Chrisuanization of the K'art'vehan monarchy in the fourth century only signified the potential inclusion of K'art'li within the Byzantine commonwealth. However, a serious consideration of Christian K'art'li's relationship to Byzantium on the part of the K' art'vehan elite was effected only some two hundred years later with Heraclius' appearance outside the walls of Tp' ilisi. Although K'art li, and then a unified Georgia, came to be regarded as part of the Byzantine world (and many modem scholars stilt cling to this view), I would suggest that Christian K arP f -- up to Heraclius and even the early K'artvelian Bagratids-- continued to conceive of itself as a being situated within the Persian/Near Eastern milieu. Ironically, Byzantium's push to incorporate K'art' li may ultimately be regarded as a failure, at least in part, for by the second-half of the eleventh century the monarchs of all-Georgia dropped subordinate Byzantine dignities, raised the status of the head of the Georgian Church to that of patriarch, battled against Byzantine armies in Porous and western Caucasia, and began to portray themselves as equals to the emperors. From the Byzantine perspective, it would seem that K' art' li/Georgia never came to understand its proper place within the Byzantine world
'Tervel of Bulgaria and Gliavanos the Khazar Took Their Places There on Many Occasions'
Annetta Ilieva (Independent Scholar)
It happens that for the emerging medieval Byzantium the troubled seventh century came to a close--in a figurative sense, of course--, with the only emperor in all its existence who succeeded to mount the
throne for a second time. By the irony of history, his name was Justinian. Tire circumstances of his return to Constantinople involved the intervention of a newly established power in some of the former Balkan territories of the empire so "strenuously" fortified along the Danube limes by the first Justinian.
The relations between the "cut-nose" emperor and Tervel of Butgaria have beer, much discussed in numerous scholarly works particularly, and understandably, by Bulgarian medievalists. What this paper aims at is to develop a guess nourished by the re-dating of the Parastaseis Syntomoi clhronilcai to the early eighth century. Whatever Kazlrdan's doubts against the thesis of Cameron and Herrin are it seems that the paragraphs of the 'Brief Historical Notes' dealing with Justinian 11 have been produced in the immediate aftermath of his reign. One of them, however, namely the one about the kneeling statue of the tyrant 'in the golden-roofed Basilica colonnade' (i. e. § 37 whence the title of this paper was borrowed) has not received the attention it deserves so far. It is my view that the 'nhnra ouv oda dll(ya OxEioe ]in that same part of the Basilica] b86Bnoav [by Tervel and 'Gliavanos the Khazar']' is an explicit statement that can help us elucidate the much debated--and to my opinion still unresolved issue--, of the 'aaxrov' in the first inscription around the Madera equestrian, of the treaty of A.D. 716, and finally of Theophanes's 'nfinzov' in his section on the emergence of the Bulgarian state. I should like to acknowledge the fact that the development of my arguments is much endebted to Professor Oikonomides's article on the A.D. 716 treaty in the first volume of Studia SlavicoByzentina et Mediaevalia Furopensia (Sofia, 1989).
Did the South Slavs have Ethnicity in the Middle Ages?
John V A. Fine (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)
Did the medieval Bulgarians, Serbs, and Bosnians have ethnic awareness? An ethnic feels in a community with others of his kind, that they are members (even when not knowing each other), bound by common ingredients, usually language, territory, a common history, and a feeling that those sharing these qualities were somehow members of a common family, which continues to exist when state boundaries change. Most South Slav scholars use a simpler definition, merely using the so-called ethnic- name. But this is unsatisfactory, for a Seth commander or soldier may simply be one who serves the ruler of Serbia, he might not even call himself a Serb. In fact most Balkan people (and all people in huge areas) were simply called "Slavs." Moreover, in alt three states a Bulgarian, etc., usually denoted someone who served the given state's ruler.
1) Bulgaria: Early Bulgarian intellectuals (from. the tenth century) had a concept of ethnic family, but, it was derived from the Cyril-Methodian mission and denoted the Slavs in general. John Vladislav -the last ruler of the First Empire -- left an inscription (ca. 1017) referring to himself as of the Bulgarian "rod" (family), which suggests ethnicity. But after this idiosyncratic text, we must wait until the 14th century, when in certain Bulgarian Church circles, the concept of a Bulgarian "rod" or "jazik" (in the sense of'nation) emerged. It did not penetrate society beyond these Church circles, in any case, Bulgaria felt to the Turks in 1393.
2) Serbia: Serbia s earliest "ethnic" reference is in Cantacuzenus, who claims Stefan Dusan wanted Hrelja's return to Dusans service, because "of sameness of race." Then a silence falls on "ethnicity" until the 15th century when Gregory Tsamblak -- a Bulgarian emigre in Serbia -- wrote a life of Stefan Decanski who was of the "the great and most glorious Serbian ezyk." (language/nation). This vocabulary, a transplant from Bulgaria, hardly penetrated Serbian society. Serbia's ideology emerged at court and focused on the sacred dynasty. In certain areas, though at times under the dynasty and called Serbian lands, the term Serb was never attached to the populace; e.g., the word "Slav" was used consistently in what is now Montenegro.
3) Bosnia: No sign of Bosnian "ethnicity." However, the term "Bosnian" was used widely for those serving Bosnia's rulers. Significantly, the labels "Serb" and "Croat" -- despite modern nationalist claims -- were not used for people in medieval Bosnia at all.
VI. CONSTANTINOPLE AND ITS CEREMONIES
Chair: George Majeska (University of Maryland)
1. A. Cakmak (Princeton University), R. Taylor (University of Minnesota), E. Durukal (Bogazigi University)
"Hagia Sophia: A Possible Reconstruction of the First Dome"
2. Natalia Teteriatnikov (Dumbarton Oaks)
"The Patriarchal Quarters in the South Gallery of Hagia Sophia: Where Was the Patriarch's Throne?"
3. Kim Bowes (Princeton University)
"The Monumental Columns of Constantinople and their Role in Urban Ceremony"
4. Jean A. Miller (The University of Rochester)
"The Founder's Ghost and Other Puzzles: Parsing Ritual in Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus"
5. Ioli Kalavrezou (Harvard University)
"The Rod of Moses In Byzantine Court Ceremonial"
Hagia Sophia: A Possible Reconstruction of the First Dome
A. Qakmak (Princeton Univ.) R. Taylor (Univ. of Minnesota) E. Durukal (Bogaziti Univ.)
With its vast scale and corresponding immense cost, extraordinary speed of erection (532-537 AD), and stunning interior space, the Hagia Sophia is unparalleled in premodern Western architecture. As such, its achievement begs answers to three intriguing and interrelated questions. The first falls mainly in the realm of architectural/technological history and concerns the nature of the theoretical and material resources used by Hagia Sophia's designers, Anthemius of Tralies and Isidorus of Miletus, for the creation of this great building. In 558, the great central dome fell after being subjected to two earthquakes. A nephew of Isidorus then erected the current dome. The form of the second dome remains basically unchanged despite its subsequent partial collapses. The second question concerns the behavior, under the action of environmental loadings, of Hagia Sophia's much-modified structure over the centuries and the worthiness of the present-day structure in a future major earthquake, an event that is most likely to occur within the next half-century. These two questions were addressed through the application of numerical, structural modeling techniques aided by on-site archaeological observations and dynamic-instrumentation measurements. The third concerning the exact shape and nature of the original dome has not been satisfactorily answered to date.
In studying the earthquake worthiness of the current dome in comparison to the generally assumed collapsed original pendentive dome, it was discovered that the pendentive dome is structurally not inferior to the current dome, under both static and dynamic loads. This surprising result raises questions on the validity of the currently assumed original dome. A review of historical writings has provided insights to help formulate a new proposal. From Procopius' description, the first structure can easily be interpreted as a dome on a fenestrated drum. Paul the Silentiary claims that the "horn of the eastern arch" had collapsed. This is normally Interpreted as the arch's crown, but Agathias, who had read Paul's description, declares that the eastern arch was left unchanged. Could the "horn" instead have been the part of the drum resting upon the eastern arch7 Moreover, according to Malalas, the new dome was 20 ft. higher than the original one, whereas the Diegesis (Narratio de Sancta Sophia) states that the dome was made 20 ft. tower. The apparently contradictory reports of raising and towering are reconciled if we recognize that the new dome was made 20 ft. higher in profile when its springings were towered down to the cornice.
Based on this information, we propose a possible alternative for the first structure: a slightly flatter dome than the current one sitting on a 20 ft. tall fenestrated drum, of the same height as the current dome crown measured from the cornice level. This new proposed dome is slightly less strong structurally under static toads, however, under an earthquake of magnitude 7.5, its drum shows tensile stresses of two and a half times those of the other two configurations, while the tensile stresses in the arches are about the same for all three cases. Thus it seems likely that the drum of this dome would have been seriously damaged after the sequence of earthquakes that occurred in 557 AD. Thus it was probably part of the drum above the eastern arch, and not the arch itself, which collapsed in 558 AD, taking down with it a portion of the dome above.
There are additional reasons why the currently assumed pendentive dome is unlikely to be the correct one. First, if the eastern arch collapsed, why was only the dome, and not the arch, modified afterwards) In the second collapse of the 10th century, when the crown of the western arch fell, Tradat replaced the arch with one of greater cross-section before repairing the dome. And unlike Isidorus the Younger, he left the rest of the dome intact, since he recognized that its collapse was caused by the weakness of the arch. Next, comparing the pendentive dome with the current one, the change in profile is very significant. The current dome is both higher and almost twice as heavy, thus increasing the toads on the arches. Finally, the change from the new proposed shape to the current one is a rational and simple one which tilts the drum inwards and makes it part of the spherical dome, thus reducing the large moments in the ribs that probably caused the failure of the original dome described by Procopius.
Thus this new proposed reconstruction of the first dome Is compatible with both the results of our scientific studies and the original sources mentioned and clearly shows that the current dome is a far more rational and consistent improvement over the newly proposed original dome.
The Patriarchal Quarters in the South Gallery of Hagia Sophia: Where Was the Patriarch's Throne?
Natalia Teteriatnikov (Dumbarton Oaks)
The central cathedral of the Byzantine empire, Hagia Sophia in Constantinople assumed a complex function throughout its history. Many aspects of the building are still obscure because of the scarcity of literary sources and the absence of original furnishings. This paper will investigate an important part of this church building -- the central bay of the south gallery. Although scholars generally identified the central bay of the South Gallery as the patriarchal quarters, stilt little is known about the function of this part of the gallery and its furnishings. I will present the archaeological evidence for the location of the patriarchal throne, previously unexplored, and also discuss its functional context.
The survey of Hagia Sophia by Robert van Nice brought to light floor marks in the South gallery which have never been explored in the studies of Hagia Sophia. Floor marks from the original furnishings are still in situ on the north and south sides of the eastern wall. The marble floor near the center of the north side of the east wall shows traces of a rectangular base (150 cm x 1.90 cm). I would tike to propose that this base belongs to the throne of the patriarch. This seat is adjacent to the east wall with a similar orientation to the bishop's throne in the synthronon of the apse. This place, close to the balustrade of the gallery, would have allowed the patriarch to comfortably participate in the church services.
The Book of Ceremonies and pilgrim's accounts inform us that the patriarch used this area for attending the liturgy during which he blessed the singers (psaltai) from the gallery. The location of the base of the proposed patriarchal throne is on the same axis as the ambo location on the ground floor of the central nave where the singers (psaltai) stood during the liturgy. We also know that on certain feasts the patriarch attended the liturgy and stayed in the gallery over night. 'f lie location proposed here for the patriarch's throne seems to be in agreement with the sources.
The Monumental Columns of Constantinople and their Role in Urban Ceremony
Kim Bowes (Princeton University)
One of the most prominent aspects of Byzantine Constantinople was the dozen or more monumental honorific columns which rose above its skyline. Now mostly in ruin or known from textual references alone, the formal and iconographic aspects of these monuments have been investigated at length by art historians and archaeologists, most recently by Jean-Pierre Sodini. The placement and urban function of these monuments, however, has been ignored by nearly all scholars. This study represents the first consideration of these monuments as a topographical group and reveals their important role in the articulation of both triumphal and ecclesiastical ceremony in Constantinople during the Late Antique and Middle Byzantine periods. As such, it attempts to correlate and expand the seminal works of Michael McCormick and John Baldovin on imperial and religious urban ceremonies in the Byzantine capital.
This paper suggests that the Constaminopolitan monuments helped to shape the urban processional form of Middle Byzantine worship and defined an important part of Constantinopolitan 'sacred topography.' Nine of the twelve columns were located in the fora along either the lower, or northern branches of the Mese. In addition to serving as major east-west arteries, these roads seem to have functioned as the primary routes for imperial triumphal processions. Each column built on these roads was placed at the edge of the densely populated area of the city, gradually extending the line of these monuments from the city center at the Augusteon out beyond the city walls to the Hebdomon and to the north beyond the Apostoleon. This pattern of construction indicates a monumental and propagandistic articulation of the edges of the city, which echoes the important symbolic role played by the city limits in triumph ceremonies. On the basis of the available surviving evidence, it seems that the primary viewing side of these monuments, bearing reliefs and inscriptions, faced out of the city toward the incoming viewer or the direction of an oncoming triumphal cortege.
The most complete record of the proceedings of a Constantinopolitan triumph is found in Constantine Porphyrogenitus' record of the 879 triumph of Basil 1. (Imp. Exp. 725-795) Like his fourth and fifth-century predecessors, Basil chose to enter the city through the Golden Gate and proceed down the lower Mese to St. Sophia. This record indicates that the majority of stations in that triumph stopped at the colossal columns where the emperor was received and acclaimed. The detour taken by the imperial cortege in order to pass by at least one column further emphasizes the importance of these monuments in Basil's triumph.
Columns also figured prominently in the Mid-Pentecost procession returning from St. Mocius to the Great Palace, as described in the De Cerimoniis (1,17). The coincidence of Basil's triumphal route and the majority of its columnar stations with this ecclesiastic procession indicates not only the importance of triumphal tradition and these monumental landmarks in the formation of Christian urban processional routes, but also that by the Middle Byzantine period, a traditional imperial architectural form had become integrated into a Christian hermeneutic. Christian viewers, long having forgotten the original honorific functions of the these monuments, could understand them as signs of divine visitation, the home of stylite ascetics, or more generally, a symbol of their city's survival in the face of natural disasters. The eighthcentury apocalyptic revelation of the seer Daniel mentioning the column of Constantine and a similar citation by Andrew the Fool in the 10th century further proves the power of columns to Christian viewers.
The monumental columns of Rome were not absorbed into either Christian hermeneutic or ceremony to such an extent, in part due to the different placement and original meaning of Roman columns, as well as to the different Christian topography of the two cities. The comparison with Rome highlights the unique functions of Constantinopolitan columns vis a vis the formation of urban procession, and elucidates the importance these monuments held for over 500 years.
The Founder's Ghost and Other Puzzles: Parsing Ritual in Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus
Jean A. Miller (The University of Rochester)
Beginning with an example of the use of ritual taken from the anthropologicai iiteracure, the paper goes on co bring together and to add to the analytic approaches bearing on the spatial and temperal dimensions detectable in Constantine VIi's descriptions of ritual in his Be ceremonies. Particular azzention is paid to the 'processional' rituals, especially the two rituals devised for two 'anomalous' occasions: the "Reception of Helga the Rus "' and "The Reception of the Saracen Friends" - anomaly residing in the fact that Heigga was a woman and a sovereign, and the Saracen Friends were not Christian. A brief coda on the "taboos of the Emperor Constantine," taken from the Be aaministrando imperio, Is added, to show how the powerful name of the Founder. Constantine the Great. was used and manipulated. From the first Constantine on, the East Roman rulers were able to use ritual in a comprehensive and energetic fashion. to arrange, orde^, and make unaerstandabie their soclai and political universe. Ritual not only displayed and impressed as a drama might. but brought the entire City, and a fortiori the most sacred topoi of Sacred Palace and Great Church, into use as an iconic backdrop or program. A particular genius was revealed in the East Roman calculation of how best to uc_iize stable zoos and mobile processional, participation and observation. directionality and "story" (or history). The theoretical suggesi:ions of two percipient aaaiysts of the ritual idea, moment, and process, that is, Victor Turner and J. Z. Smith. will be of great value here.
The Rod of Moses In Byzantine Court Ceremonial
Ioli Kalavrezou (Harvard University)
The Rod of Moses is one of the oldest religious relics that the Byzantines possessed. It was supposed to have been brought to Constantinople at the time of Constantine the Great. According to Pseudo-Codinus a church was built to house it at the location where Constantine received the Rod. This church was located at the south-westem side of the Vilth hill near the Constantinian wall and had the name of the %heotokos ris Kabdoa.. However, the relic was moved at some later date and deposited in the imperial palace where we find it often mentioned in the Book of Ceremonies. In the palace it was kept in the oratory or chapel of St. Theodore, one of the vaulted chambers attached to the Chrysotriklinos. Once in the palace, it became one of two very important relics that were present at every official occasion.
The court created and used symbols and images for imperial self-definition and presentation of the imperial office. Relics played a very important role in this. They defined the Byzantine notion of orthodox Christianity and also the Byzantine notion of Empire.
The paper will discuss the role of the Rod of Moses in the ceremonial life of the Byzantine emperors and its influence on Byzantine imperial art.
VII. BYZANTIUM AND THL. W I?ST 111ROUGH THE AGE OF CHARLEMAGNE
Chair: Lawrence Nees (University of Delaware)
1. Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis (Western Michigan University)
"Visualizing an Imperial Capital: Charlemagne and Ravenna"
2. Genevra Kombluth (Youngstown State University)
"Carolingian and Middle Byzantine Cameos: a case of Western Influence?"
Visualizing an Imperial Capital: Charlemagne and Ravenna
Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis (Western Michigan University)
According to his biographer, Charlemagne bequeathed the bishopric of Ravenna a large silver table with a picture (effigies) of the city of Rome on it, while he left a similar table, with a representation (descriptio) of Constantinople, to St. Peter's in Rome. These are the only two churches to which Charlemagne willed individual objects; the privileging of Rome and Ravenna is an indication of the high esteem in which Charlemagne held these two cities. Given the antagonistic relations between the archbishops of Ravenna and the popes of Rome in the ninth century, it was surely an act of deliberate irony to give the picture of Rome to Ravenna and the picture of Constantinople to Rome. However, this is not the only meaning of the bequest; the two pairs of cities, Rome-Ravenna and Rome-Constantinople, embody in different ways Charlemagne's concept of the imperium romanorum, and indicate the pivotal role played by Ravens in Charlemagne's conception of his own imperial capital city.
Charemagne is known to have visited Ravenna at least twice: once in 787, and again in 801. The city and its treasures seem to have made an impression upon him, since several sources mention his appropriation of building materials and objects from Ravenna for use at Aachen. In addition, the many formal similarities between the church of San Vitale in Ravenna and the Palatine Chapel at Aachen indicate that the former was at least one of the models for Charlemagne's construction. A great deal has been written about exactly what he was attempting to imitate, and how he went about it; most of the scholarly literature has bypassed Ravenna to focus on Rome or Constantinople.
In this talk, I examine what Charlemagne would have seen when he went to Ravenna, and what the city might have represented visually to him. In preparing a new critical edition and translation of Agnellus' Liber potuificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, written in the 830's and 40's, it became evident to me that Agnellus provides a great deal of information about the appearance of the city in Charlemagne's day. I argue that in the bequest of the tables, Charlemagne was indicating his identification of Ravenna with Rome's sister imperial city, Constantinople. To Charlemagne, Ravenna was a western version of Constantinople, that is, a Byzantine-style imperial city, which was as close as he got to actually seeing Constantinople, except for the descriptio on his table. But beyond this, Ravenna had been a capital in its own right, of the western, Christian, Roman empire that had covered much of the territory that Charlemagne himself ruled. By modelling Aachen on Ravenna, Charlemagne made his own capital part of this network of imperial cities, a "new-new-new Rome;' setting up the dichotomies Aachen-Rome and Aachen-Constantinople, but also Aachen-Ravenna, as represented in the bequests of die silver tables. In the context of Charlemagne's renovario romanorunt imperil, Ravenna provided him with an ideal model, one that could function on marry levels as Byzantine, imperial, Christian, and western capital.
Carolingian and Middle Byzantine Cameos: a case of Western influence?
Genevra Kombluth (Youngsmwn State University)
Most early Byzantine cameos are cut in multi-colored layered agate: dark stone forms a background plane, while is used for the bulk of the relief figures, and another dark layer colors the hair, clothing, and other details leg. angels with cross, Dumbarton Oaks). 'these gems am dated in the sixth or seventh century. There is then a gap in the glyptic record. The earliest datable Middle Byzantine cameo, a jasper standing Christ in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is from the reign of Leo VI. This monochrome stone bears little resemblance to the earlier gems.
Since no late seventh/early eighth-century cameos have been identified, and since the Middle Byzantine material differs from early Byzantine stones, it is likely that there was a break in cameo production (and not merely in survivals). The seventh-to-ninth century lacuna is probably not due to Iconoclasm, despite coincidental liming. These stones were small personal items, readily hidden, and could easily have escaped official censure. 'they also apparently functioned as protective encolpia (Martin Dennen, current research). They therefore belong in the ubiquitous class of apolropaic material used continuously throughout Byzantine history (Henry Maguire. ed., Byzantine Maine, 1995). Despite continuing functional demand, however, cameos apparently went out of fashion before Iconoclasm, and returned later in a different form. It is then necessary to look for some stimulus besides the end of Iconoclasm, to explain the resurgence of cameo cutting. Perhaps this stimulus came from Frankish activity.
One of the most distinctive Middle Byzantine forms is the transparent monochrome cameo (e.g. sapphire of Christ blessing, Dumbarton Oaks). Then: is some precedent for these gems in Sassaman glyptic (e.g. "Cup of Chosroes," Cabinet des Medailles), but that material was accessible to Byzantine viewers welt before the ninth century and did not stimulate local imitations. A newly identified Carolingian stone, however, shows that the Franks were making transparent monochrome cameos just before the Byzanlines began to do so. 1 have previously published the 20 surviving Carolingian intaglios (17 in transparent rock crystal), gems whose formal was probably influenced by early Byzantine reverse-engraved pendants. Erika ZwierleinDiehl and 1 have now identified as Carolingian a sapphire cameo of Christ blessing (Cologne, Shrine of the Three Kings; identification in press). This unique stone is stylistically close to the ivory covers of the Dagulf Psalter, and may therefore be assigned to the Court School of Charlemagne, perhaps (tike the Psalter) before 795. 'Ns sapphire cameo is in concept, if not in style, remarkably similar to the Middle Byzantine examples.
We know of many gift exchanges between the Byzantine and Frankish courts. In general, those exchanges have stimulated discussion of the Byzantine influence on Carolingian art. Carolingian and Middle Byzantine glyptic may provide us with an opportunity to discuss instead the inspiration of eastern artists by the work of their western counterpa1s.
VIll. ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES ON LATE ANTIQUITY/EARLY BYZANTIUM
Chair: Richard J. Talbert (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
1. Thomas R. Elliott (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
"Diocletianic Census Inscriptions of the Aegean Islands and Asia Minor"
2. Timothy E. Gregory (The Ohio State University)
"Realities of the Byzantine Economy: Views from the Cypriot Kitchen"
3. A.L. McClanan (Harvard University)
"Byzantine Steelyard Weights Depicting Empresses"
4. Peter Lampinen (Combined Caesarea Expeditions)
"Autonomous Civic Coinage in Seventh Century Syria-Palestine and the End of Byzantine rule in the East"
Diocletianic Census Inscriptions of the Aegean Islands and Asia Minor
Thomas R. Elliott (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
This paper will present findings from the study of census and cadastral inscriptions from ten different sites in the Aegean islands and Asia Minor. These inscriptions constitute an important and unique body of documentary evidence for studies of taxation, census, land use, manpower and related topics for the Late Imperial and Early Byzantine periods. The paper will include a survey of the inscriptions, including recently-published fragments, and will focus on new readings and interpretations of some of the stones that can still be located today. I will present photographs and readings of the relevant inscriptions from Thera and Cos, where I was privileged to conduct research during the summer of 1996 under the auspices of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and with the permission of the Greek Archaeological Service. The paper will also describe a research project, already under way, that wilt produce a corpus of these inscriptions. This corpus will be submitted as my Master's Thesis, distributed to interested scholars and made available over the INTERNET.
The fragments of these inscriptions have been published individually over the past 150 years, many of them without photographs. There is no work that collects and presents alt of them. Further fragments stilt await publication. The most complete treatment was published in 1945 (Andre Deleage, La Cnpiinlion du Bas-Empire) and is now out-of-date in many respects. Further research on the implications of these inscriptions is hampered by the fact that, in several cases, readings of the complex numerical figures they preserve have not been verified in light of theories proposed since their publication. Recent discoveries and identifications of new fragments by W. Blomel, A. Chaniotis, R. Parker, G. Reger and H. Williams need to be presented and discussed alongside the larger group. Several scholars engaged in the study of topics that depend on these inscriptions have called for a new presentation, including W. Goffart and R. Duncan-Jones. This paper wilt serves as a status report on progress toward answering their call.
Realities of the Byzantine Economy: Views from the Cypriot Kitchen Timothy E. Gregory (The Ohio State University). Archaeology has long been seen as a primary source of information for our understanding of the Byzantine economy, and pottery has often been used as a major indication of the direction and extent of trade. For these purposes, attention has normally focused on either finewares (as an indication of elite trade) or amphoras (as evidence of bulk trade). Little or no attention has been paid to cooking vessels, both because they do not often travel well and because local kilns are assumed to have supplied regional needs. Little work has been done to check or corroborate those assumptions, but recent excavation and survey in various parts of Cyprus allowjust such a study to be carried out. Virtually every excavation and survey in Cyprus turns up large numbers of late Roman and Byzantine cooking pots. These humble vessels were apparently the basic vessel for kitchen use and perhaps even for table use. Although cooking pots are nearly all of virtually the same utilitarian shape, late antique Cypriot vessels are generally identifiable by their fabric and they have been found at many sites in Asia Minor and the Levant, as well as on the island itself, raising the question as to whether these pots may have been the focus of at least some degree of long-distance exchange.
Study of these cooking pots from a number of archaeological projects throughout Cyprus reveals a remarkably wide variety of differences in shape and even of fabric, forcing us to examine once again the mechanisms of production and trade-both of which have fundamental ranufications for our understanding of the nature of the economy in this period.
This paper examines a number of problems, including difficulties of classification and fallacies caused by chronological discontinuity, but it concludes that one can suggest a system of interlocking "cooking pot regions" throughout Cyprus and that this system provides important evidence about the nature of trade between the fourth and the seventh centuries.
Byzantine Steelyard Weights Depicting Empresses
A.L. McClanan (Harvard University)
During the Early Byzantine period, the counterpoises of steelyard weights were routinely molded in the fore, of an emperor and, even more commonly, an empress. These objects have primarily been studied as isolated exemplars in museum catalogs, but the information that these mass-produced representations yields about visual culture requires their study as a group.
By looking at the numerous examples now found in collections throughout Europe and the United States, some generalizations can be made. The weights in the form of empresses are often identified with individual Theodosian empresses on the basis of a supposed similarity to numismatic images. This comparative practice has disproportionately shifted the dating of these objects to the time when augustae were prominently represented on coins, which did not necessarily correlate to their popularity as an emblem on weights. It is tempting to identify the steelyard weights with individuals, but when studied as a group they appear to be typological representations rather than portraits. These tokens convey the authority of empire to routine business transactions, and that this prestige was signified by an empress bespeaks her viability as emblem of imperial power.
Unfortunately many of the published examples of these weights are not from excavated contexts, so we have relied on stylistic analysis to yield their broad Early Byzantine dating. Two excavated examples of a related type from Anemurium and the seventh-century shipwreck of Yassi Ada likewise hint that the this type of weight was used into the sixth and seventh centuries, giving yet another reason to question the standard fourth- and fiftb-century attribution of these pieces.
While two examples are hardly a substantial base for sweeping claims, they do contravene another common assumption made by scholars such as Ross about these steelyard weights--that they can be localized to Constantinople in terms of both production and use. Looking at the group of steelyard weight counterpoises in the shape of empress busts that are housed in the Istanbul Archeological Museum disputes this claim. Fourteen examples in Istanbul are published, of which five are given a provenance. Interestingly, only two were found in Istanbul, the other three originate in Adana, Kayseri and (~anakkale. Having the imperial image on the commercial weights used throughout the empire effectively disseminated this emblem of authority. This far-flung distribution parallels practice in low-value contemporary Byzantine coinage. Just as the image of the empress prominently marked widely circulated coinage during this period, their image also validated everyday transactions at the edge of the empire.
Autonomous Civic Coinage in Seventh Century Syria-Palestine and the End of Byzantine rule in the East
Peter Lampinen (Combined Caesarea Expeditions)
The Byzantine stale faced repeated shocks along its eastern frontier in the first half of the seventh century. Beginning with the revolt of Heraclius against Phocas in 608, the region of Syria-Palestine was visited with a succession of armed conflicts and the attendant civil disruptions. 614 saw the toss of much of the east to the Persians, including the sacred city of Jerusalem. Large scale military campaigns tasted until the final complete defeat of the Persians in 628, only to break out again a few years later, with the eruption of Islamic forces out of Arabia. Every one of these movements of armies can be linked to a specific Byzantine mint issue, often of an emergency military nature, but still official in the sense of being struck by and for imperial authorities.
What is becoming clear is that there was a parallel sequence of issues of a less official nature. Often labeled "Arab-Byzantine" and traditionally attributed to the confusing period immediately after the Arab conquest, several distinctive types appear to have been in circulation during the Byzantine period (i.e. before 641 CE). Beginning as early as the Juslinianic period a wetter of more or less competent imitations of imperial types appear in circulation, providing the fractional currency neglected by the central authorities. Imitations of the dekanummia of Alexandria were ubiquitous in Palestine, and formed the basis of the circulating currency system by the end of the 6th century, replacing the set of lower denominations introduced earlier in the century by Anastasius. A notable change occurs at the beginning of the 7th century, when several series of bronze folleis and half folleis appear that are not direct imitations of official issues,
are indeed marked with mint names that were not the locations of official mints. The special issues struck for Jerusalem, Scythopolis (Beth Shean), Gerasa, Neapolis and possibly others appear to overlap the Byzantine and Islamic periods and are evidence to support a hypothesis that civil authorities were operating outside of Imperial control by striking coinage for local circulation at a time when a restive local population was increasingly alienated from the center at Constantinople and the imperial court. The presence of military garrisons in many of these towns is also a factor that must be addressed, in tight of the still unclear rote military activity played in the distribution of coinage and the presence or absence of a local mint. By the middle Ummayad period (circa 680 CE, according to Bates) the concept of a central mint supplying coinage for an entire region, a system in place since the reign of Diocletian, had been replaced by that of local small scale minting authorities, at least a dozen striking in Palestine itself.
It is evident that the picture numismatists have developed of the composition of coinage in circulation in the Byzantine east of the 7th century is not as clear cut as previously thought. What changes will be wrought in our understanding of Byzantine society by further investigation of these local coinages? As a beginning, these "Byzantine Provincial" issues suggest currents of civic autonomy existed in the last decades of Byzantine rule in the east, and further examination might clarify the rote of local aspirations in the weakening of imperial control in the face of outside threats from Persian and Arab and the resultant collapse of Byzantine civil and military infrastructure.
IX. BYZANTINES AND LATINS: FRIENDS AND FOES
Chair: Charles M. Brand (Bryn Mawr College)
1. Tia M. Kolbaba (Princeton University)
"Byzantines, Latins , and Holy War. Attitudes toward Religiously Inspired Violence before and after 1204"
2. Eric A. Ivison (Clarion State University of Pennsylvania)
"A Moment of East-West Cultural Exchange: Byzantine Funerary Chalices"
3. Frederick A. Schultz (The Ohio State University)
"The Economy of 14th Century Corinth: Commercial and Agricultural Administration During the Acciaioli Period"
4. Joan Marguerite Downs (University of Michigan)
"The Medieval Settlement at the Hexamilion Fortress at Isthmia: A Byzantine Center in the Corinthia"
Byzantines, Latins, and Holy War. Attitudes toward Religiously Inspired Violence before and after 1204.
Tia M. Kolbaba (Princeton University)
Most scholars who discuss Byzantine ideas of just war and holy war contrast Byzantine attitudes and western European ones. We frequently read that Byzanhnes did not understand holy war, that they maintained a classical idea of just war, and that they therefore found the crusades unintelligible and barbarous. Moreover, this theory continues, Byzantine wars were not holy wars because holy wars must be declared by religious authorities, as crusade and jihad were, while Byzantine wars were fought on imperial authority. On the other hand, Byzantine writers often glorify the emperors as defenders of the faith and their wars as holy wars. Based on such accounts, other scholars have argued that Byzantium did indeed have a crusade idea, and had it long before the West did.
This paper tries to accommodate the truth in both of these views. Byzantine wars often were holy wars--albeit holy wars which differed significantly from both crusade and jihad. One way to demonstrate this point is to analyze Byzantine criticism of the crusades. Before 1204, complaints about the crusades take two forms, both of which we can see in the Alexiad of Anna Comnena. First, there are complaints about Latin armies being unruly and about crusaders who refuse to bow to imperial authority. Second, the princess joins Michael Cerularius and others in objecting to a specific violation of canon law: namely, bishops and priests fighting. No writer, so far as I know, objects to the idea of a war against the infidel.
Only after 1204 do Byzantine authors begin to complain about other features of the crusades. Shortly after the Fourth Crusade, for example, Constantine Stilbes complains about the Latin idea that a soldier killed in battle against the infidel goes straight to heaven.
Notably, however, he does not deny the validity of religious warfare per se.
Three significant problems accompany failure to recognize both that Byzantines had their own ideas of holy war, and that their condemnations of Latin holy war changed over time.
First, failure to recognize the change after 1204 is failure to recognize the extent to which our own perceptions of Greeks, Latins, and the crusades is influenced by the events of 1204--that is, by our knowledge of a crusade directed against orthodox Christians.
Second, generalizations about Byzantine attitudes toward the crusades often lead to the conclusion that the Greeks were somehow not warlike. This conclusion can be used against them, as in Gibbon's portrayal of "effeminate Greeks". Or it can be used positively, making them more "like us" in their understanding that war is Hell. Either way, the result is more an anachronistic stereotype than a portrait of real people.
Finally, and most fundamentally, the claim that Byzantine wars were not holy wars because they were under imperial, not ecclesiastical, authority rests on the assumption that church and state in Byzantium were separable. They were not.
A Moment of East-West Cultural Exchange: Byzantine Funerary Chalices
Eric A. Ivison (Clarion Slate University of Pennsylvania)
Scholarship has tended to minimize or even dismiss any influence of Westem culture on Byzantine society following the Fourth Crusade, despite the lack of comprehensive research on the subject. Studies to date have been restricted in focus and scope, using only written texts, which emphasize the differences and conflict between Latins and Greeks and do not take into account material culture and the social implications derived from its study. Archaeological studies of other opposing cultures have found plenty of evidence for exchange between them, and the late medieval Aegean is no exception. My paper aims to open a critical debate on Latin-Byzantine cultural relations, by using archaeological evidence in combination with literary sources. Hero I will present an aspect of Byzantine burial practices.
My paper discusses two glazed ceramic goblets associated with burials at Nicaea in Asia Minor (Iznik, Turkey) and Peritheorion in Thrace (ancient Anastasioupolis, Greece). Both goblets date to the early Palaeologan period and have similar shapes and inscriptions, followed by invocations for two named individuals. I identify the Nicaea and Peritheorion goblets as communion chalices on the basis of their inscriptions, which are eucharistic in spirit, and their shapes, both of which closely imitate those of chalices in precious metals. Probable chalices are also known from other contemporary graves and different contexts, and although there are precedents in Canon Law for the burial of the Host with the clergy in the twelfth century, chalices are absent from Byzantine graves prior to the thirteenth.
The practice of placing chalices in graves begins in the Latin West up to three centuries before 1200, where they are restricted to clergy as a symbol of ordained rank and as an apotropaic talisman. In the light of Eastern and Western evidence, I propose that the Byzantine pottery chalices served the same purpose, being made especially for burial. Given the unheralded appearance of chalices in the thirteenth-century East, I submit that this custom is derived from the Latins, and that it is a consequence of Frankish influence in Byzantine lands in the wake of the Fourth Crusade (1204).
The implications of my conclusions for understanding the sources and the period are important and wide ranging. The silence of the written sources in the face of archaeological remains demonstrates that new methods, using and comparing both corpora of data, must be adopted in this form of enquiry. Such analysis has the potential to strip away our own and Byzantine preconceptions about the period and its sources, revealing a far more complex and subtle picture of competition and mutual emulation between the Latin and Byzantine elites than previously assumed. This instance of cultural exchange is indicative of a wider social phenomenon, one that needs more in-depth study if we are to trace the exchange and even fusion of Byzantine and Latin culture after 1204.
The Economy of I4'° Century Corinth: Commercial and Agricultural Administration During the Acciaioli Period
Frederick A. Schultz (The Ohio State University)
When the French and Italian knights of the fourth crusade set themselves to the task of taking actual possession of the lands they parceled out after the fall of Constantinople, they faced obstacles beyond the purely military problem of occupying the land: they had to administer their new territories and exploit them efficiently; they had to govern an indigenous population that had its own language, ruling elite, legal tradition and cultural norms-all drastically different than those of the west; in short, they had to establish a modus vivemfi with their new subjects without allowing themselves to be assimilated entirely by the Greek population. The resulting clash of local and foreign elements created a complex society in the Frankish Balkans based on Western feudalism but altered by existing economic, religious and even political realities.
This paper, based on economic documents of the Acciaioh period, describes certain aspects of this complex society. Specifically, i have addressed the nature of commercial activity in Corinth and the process of agricultural exploitation of the Corinthia. The picture that emerges is one of fairly sophisticated administrative and commercial structures that rested on a cash-poor economy. This resulted in elaborate mechanisms to remunerate officials, merchants and artisans. The document also sheds tight on the commerial status of Greeks and Jews in Corinth and their relationship to the Italian aristocracy.
The Medieval Settlement at the Hexamilion Fortress at Isthmia: A Byzantine Center in the Corinthia Joan Marguerite Downs (University of Michigan)
In this paper I examine some of the excavated, but hitherto unanalyzed, material from the Byzantine fortress at Isthmia near Corinth. This research illustrates both the methodological problems of incorporating old but unstudied material into the corpus of knowledge on Byzantine archaeology and the
necessity of such study. Research on the context material from the Isthmian excavations of the 1960s illustrates that this major Byzantine military settlement experienced growth associated with both periods of military threat and security, and exhibited substantial trade links. This study has produced information on the life of the settlement, including more detailed analysis of its phases of habitation, and their relationship to demographic patterns in the Byzantine northern Corinthia.
The site of Isthmia was of great importance in part because of its strategic location. It ties on the isthmus which connects the Peloponnese to Attica and stood as the first tine of defense for Corinth. The excavators' immediate goat was the clearing of the fortress wall of debris. They focused their attention on the recovery of spolia from the classical Greek sanctuary and the lowest strata which sometimes contained classical material. However, in the process many Byzantine houses with watts preserved m more than two meters in height, industrial features, like kilns, and more than 50 burials came m tight, as well as hundreds of coins, coarse ceramics, imported and local fine wares and many interesting portable items of metal, glass and bone.
This paper focuses on the remains in the vicinity of the only gate into the fortress in the fourteenth and fiftecnih centuries. The monumental Early Byzantine gates of the fortress were blocked and this gate, known as the West Gate, was the heart of the small community poised at the juncture of the
routes across the isthmus for both land and sea trade. This community is interesting as it is one in a string of inhabited loci which shifted around inside the fortress over time and because this area has yielded such a varied array of material finds. It is clear that the character of the settlement in the fortress changed throughout its history in terms of its primary purpose as either a defensive station or as an agricultural community poised at one of the busiest intersections of trade in Greece.
This reinvestigation of context material and excavation records functions m illustrate the degree to which important information on Byzantine phases of classical sites and Byzantine demography and material culture have been obscured by the priorities of previous scholarship. This paper also illustrates the methods and feasibility of recovering this information and the character of a vital Byzantine garrison and community.
X. THEOLOGY IN AN EASTERN CONTEXT
Chair: Sidney Griffith (Catholic University of America)
l. Robin Darling Young (Catholic University)
"Eznik of Kolb on the Nature of the Creator"
2. Patrick T.R. Gray (York University)
"Theological Discourse in the Seventh Century: The Heritage from the Sixth Century"
3. Daniel J. Sahas (University of Waterloo, Canada)
"Hesychastic and sufi experiences in the Confutatio Hagareni of Bartholomeus of Edessa (9th c.?)"
Eznik of Kolb on the Nature of the Creator
Robin Darling Young (Catholic University)
Eznik of Kolb, bishop of Bagrevand in Armenia during the first half of the fifth century, was the first writer to compose a work in the Armenian language. This long discussion, written ca. 991-998, has received a dual title from its editors: De Deo, or Against the Sects. The purpose of the work was twofold; it was apologetic in the manner of Athanaslus' Contra Gentes, but it was also catechetical. It aimed to instruct believers, primarily other bishops and priests, in the proper understanding of the Scriptures since these were being translated at about the same time as the composition of Ezn1k's treatise.
Of his work Eznik remarked, "the work of the church of God is the following: without the Scriptures to reproach those on the outside of the truth of things, and to convince those on the inside (lacking true opinions) by means of the holy Scriptures." Hence he employs logic to oppose the Marcionites, Manichaeans, Zoroastrians and Platonists, and also discusses the Trinity, Christ, the genesis o£ evil, and human free will.
Eznik based his work on the Greek and Syriac patristic texts collected by early Armenian Christian scholars. These works include Methodius' On Free Will as well as the works of Hippolytus, Irenaeus, Basil, Arlstides, Diodore of Tarsus, Basil of Caesarea and Ephrem of Syria. But the structure of the De Deo is his own, and his connection of Valentinian Gnostic theology with the doctrines of Zrvanism signals that Eznik thought the two were similar. He also attacked Greek philosophical cosmology and pagan astral determinism before devoting his lengthy final section to the errors of Marcionism, a group with a large following in neighboring Syria.
This paper will discuss the way in which Eznik advances his description of a Trinitarian God by way of argumentation with erroneous opinion. It will discuss the relationship between Eznik's theology and that of the Antiochene theologians who seem to have influenced it, and through It, the early Christian mission to Armenia.
Theological Discourse in the Seventh Century: The Heritage from the Sixth Century
Patrick T.R. Gray (York University)
'trends beginning in the Fifth Century led, in the Sixth, to a radical transformation of the discourse known as theology, whether Melkite or Monophysite: The relatively open and creative discourse of the age of the fathers became a cramped and scholastic kind of
discourse treating those very fathers of the previous age as ultimate authorities who had established all doctrine, and seeing its own task as the organizing and exegetng of what was assumed to be a monolithic doctrinal heritage. Part of this process of "patrification" (the making of a father) involved the association of the fathers, as champions of and sufferers for the faith, with the prestige long accorded to martyrs and monastics.
During the Seventh Century, on the Monophysite side, this trend was carried on in the form of progressively more authority's being ascribed to that church's own fathers, Dioscorus, 'timothy Aelurus, and above all Severus. By the end of the century the latter had been invested, quite explicitly, with a status virtually equal to that of Athanasius.or Cyril. Theology could now be done simply by exegeting his writings. Not surprisingly, lie was lauded as a sufferer for the faith. On the Melkite side, Anastasius Sinaiticus illustrates the perpetuation of scholastic discourse: he argued about the "texts of the fathers", and who was truly loyal to them; he addressed, not a Seventh-Century Monophysite, but - typically - Severus, showing that, for this discourse, one needed to deal only with the past. Moreover, theological discourse on all sides had taken the trend further: the fathers were not merely the authorities to be exegeted, but enunciators of "exact" and "precise" doctrines. As such, their every assertion was to be examined minutely in exactly the spirit in which a modern fundamentalist examines biblical texts, desperately seeking to resolve any apparent conflicts. Such an approach expressed itself alike in the ridiculous-for instance, a dead-serious argument about people flying (because Athanasius had spoken of "men who flew with wings and lifted themselves to life")-and the sublime-for instance, the profound reflections of Maximus on the anibigua of Gregory of Nazianzus.
Hesychastic and sufi experiences in the Confutatio Hagareni of Bartholomew of Edessa (9th c.T)
Daniel J. Sahas (University of Waterloo, Canada)
The Confutatio Hagareni (PG 104: 1384-1448), attributed to an elusive but erudite Edessene monk, Bartholomeus, can not claim to be a specimen of finesse and civility, as rarely polemic literature can do for that matter. And yet, in the midst of hyperbole, vulgarities, name-calling, insults, paternalism, and repetitive refutations, this little known treatise contains a wealth of information and allusions of textual, historical, theological, cultural, and comparative significance about Islam, and Christianity in Syria, most likely in the ninth century. As a staunched and proud ascetic, the author seems particularly interested in Muslim folkloric spirituality and the emerging sufi movement, which were nurtured by and shaping the evolving Hadith.
For Bartholomew, as for the sufis, Muhammad's miraculous ascension to heaven (mi'Mj) is of particular importance and thus a prime subject of refutation. The paper will concentrate on Bartholomeus' varying accounts of the theme in relation to its Muslim interpretation and its influence on sufi ideals and spirituality; in itself an insight into the evolution of the miracle within the Hadith. It will also examine the historical value of Bartholomeus' descriptions of, or allusions to, Muslim mysticism and spirituality in conjunction with Byzantine monastic-hesychastic ideals and experiences. One cannot miss the point that the word mir'dj literally means "Ladder"!
XI. PROSOPOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
Chair: Claudia Rapp (University of California at Los Angeles)
1. Thomas Brauch (Central Michigan University)
"Byzantine and Patristic Evidence of an Urban Prefectship for Themistius under Valens"
2. Hagith Sivan (Institute for Research in the Humanities, Princeton)
"Forbidden Unions in the Early Byzantine Empire: A Prosopographical Evaluation"
3. Ralph W. Mathisen (University of South Carolina)
"The Integration of Barbarian and Roman Society in the Early Byzantine Empire: Evidence from the Biographical Database for Late Antiquity"
4. Hugh Elton (Trinity College, CT)
"The Isaurians and the Early Byzantine Empire: AD 300-700"
5. Dion C. Smythe (King's College, London)
"Traditional Middle-Byzantine Family Values?"
Byzantine and Patristic Evidence of an Urban Prefectship for Themistius under Valens
Thomas Brauch (Central Michigan University)
In a paper delivered at the 1992 Byzantine Studies Conference the present speaker challenged the modern consensus that Themistius served as Prefect of Constantinople once in his career, in AD 384 under Theodosius I; contemporary Greek, Byzantine Greek and tenth century Arabic sources show that Themistius was eastern urban prefect in 362 during Julian's reign. But other Byzantine sources report an urban prefectship of Themistius in the reign of Valens. Poem XI, 292 of the Greek Anthology satirizes an unnamed intellectual who sought worldly glory by taking the office of urban prefect, and manuscript notes to the poem in both the Palatine and Planudean editions of the Greek Anthology identify the unnamed individual as Themistius and date the office referred to in the poem to the joint rule of Valentinian I and Valens.
Although scholars consider these notes an error or a confusion with the prefectship of 384, an urban prefectship of Themistius during the reign of Valens can be confirmed in the correspondence of Gregory of Nazianzus. In his Letter 24, written sometime between 365 and 369, Gregory asks Themistius' aid for his nephew Amphilochius in a taw case in the eastern capital. In one passage of the letter the church father compares Themistius to Plato's philosopher-magistrates for uniting outstanding magisterial power and philosophy in Constanlinople; later in the letter Gregory reports that Themistius was at the time administering justice in the city. Both descriptions imply that Themistius was the current prefect of Constanlinople.
Three considerations provide a more precise date for this prefectship. Letter 24 is one of three letters written by Gregory to highly placed individuals at Constantinople concerning Amphilochius' legal problems during the years 365 to 369; the two other letters, Letters 22 and 23, were written to the influential dignitaries Caesarius and Sophronius. From their descriptions in these letters it appears that Caesarius and Sophronius were also prefects of Constantinople during the years 365 to 369, and from a comparison of the presentations of Letters 22, 23 and 24 Themistius seems to have been the last of the series of the three prefects for 365 to 369 and to have been in office in 368. In addition, Themislius' Oration 8, given in March of 368, shows the orator to be especially close to Valens' regime. Hence this prefectship should be dated to 368. However, Gregory's Letter 38, also addressed to Themislius, suggests that Themistius remained in office until early 369.
The conclusions of this study are as follows. Modem prosopography should account an eastern urban prefectship for Themistius in 368 as well as 362 and 384. The prefectships under Julian and Valens will require a revised modern understanding of Themistius' career. Themistius should not be viewed simply as a courtier, imperial advisor and royal panegyrist, but also as an imperial official who several times occupied high administrative office. Themistius must have harbored more political ambitions or considered official appointments to be far more important to his public career than modern observers have recognized.
Forbidden Unions in the Early Byzantine Empire: A Prosopographical Evaluation
Hagilh Sivan (Institute for Research in the Humanities, Princeton)
A number of early Byzantine laws appear to have as their intent the prohibition of marriages between certain classes of individuals. CTh 3.14.1 of the early 370s, for example, states, "Nulli provincialiuur ... cum barbara sit uxore coniugium, nee ulli gentiliurn provincialis femina copuletur."
CA 9.75 of 388 (cf. CTh 3.7.2, CJ 1.9.6-7) decrees, "Ne quis Christianam mulierem in matrimonio ludaeus accipiat neque ludaeae Chrislianus coniugium sortiatur." Such laws, which seem to contradict the usual Roman "open door" policy that traditionally had encouraged the absorption of foreigners, from both inside and outside the borders of the Roman Empire (whatever they may have been), into the fabric of Roman society, have been the cause of much discussion and debate.
In the past such prohibitions usually have been interpreted as representing some form of generalized imperial policies regarding the kinds of persons who ought or not to marry bused on state perceptions of the classes of individuals named. That is to say that prohibitions of marriages with barbarians have been seen as reflecting a general imperial distrust of barbarians, and those involving Jews as having some type of pro-Christian, anti-Semitic basis. I have suggested elsewhere, however, and my continuing research confirms, that such decrees, although their incorporation into the law codes has the appearance of giving them empire-wide validity, were almost certainly ad hoc measures initially enacted to deal with particular situations in particular places at particular times which had nothing to do with any imperial policy of matrimonial exclusion. This may explain, for example, why marriages of Romans with harbanans and Jews happened to be prohibited in the extant legislation, but marriages between, say, Christians and pagans or heretics were not.
But such considerations of purpose and policy say nothing at all about social realities. How did real people perceive each other in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries? Do the legal prohibitions against certain kinds of unions, regardless of whether or not they reflect any kind of imperial "policy,"
accurately portray what was going on in early Byzantine society. Were certain kinds of unions in fact avoided'! Such questions can only be answered by the use of a prosopographical methodology. So this paper will also consider specific cases of different kinds of attested unions among Romans and barbarians on the one hand, and orthodox Christians and pagans or heretics on the other. In so doing, it should be possible to discover not only the extent to which certain kinds of unions actually were avoided, but also, to some degree, the reasons behind any types of unions that may have been truly "forbidden," not by legislation, but by actual social practice.
The Integration of Barbarian and Roman Society in the Early Byzantine Empire: Evidence from the Biographical Database for Late Antiquity
Ralph W. Mathisen (University of South Carolina)
In 1988, ut the Houston BSC, 1 presented a discussion of the Biographical Database for Late Antiquity, a project designed to create a database which will incorporate as many as possible of the individuals attested to have lived during Late Antiquity. In that presentation I discussed the "nuts and bolls" of how the database was created, such as the criteria for inclusion, and the means by which literary and epigraphical, and other evidence was reduced to computer format. Currently, the database includes individuals drawn from such sources as Ammianus Marcellinus, Gregory of Tours, Duchesne's fasti of Gallic bishops, the Bibliotheca hagiographica latina and other hagiographical sources, the Corlms insrriptionum latbtarum and other epigraphical sources, and volume two of the Prosopography of the Later Rontan Engrire.
This presentation wilt discuss one way in which the material in the database can be applied to the study of early Byzantine history. Specifically, it wilt discuss what an analysis of the nearly 30,000 persons included in the database can tell us about the integration of the barbarian and Roman populations during the early Byzantine period. The analysis will be broken down variously by period, by source, by nationality, and by occupation. A study of different sources, for example, shows that for the period before the fifth century, rather over 30% of the individuals mentioned in Ammianus appear to be barbarians, but only 2% of those in Duchesne. The reasons for such divergent numbers will be discussed. With regard to occupation, the civil, military, and ecclesiastical spheres will be considered. The percentage of barbarians among those attested in military occupations, for example, ranges from 48% in Anunianus for the late fourth century, to 85% in Gregory of Tours, for the period 395-527. Other examples of apparent preferences for Romans or barbarians in particular kinds of occupations, the reasons for them, and how they changed over time will be presented. Particular attention will be given to the biases of the sources with regard to the kinds of individuals they discuss.
In general, it will be suggested that quantitative studies tike this can help us to clarify the general picture we have of the integration of Roman and barbarian society during the crucial period from the fourth through the sixth centuries. This discussion makes it very clear that in our studies of social evolution we need to be very sensitive to the kind of source material we are studying, for the biases of the source material can easily outweigh the actual phenomena. Someone studying only Ammianus atone would come up with different conclusions from someone studying Gregory atone. Furthermore, this study also demonstrates that even supposedly comprehensive secondary catalogues are far too biased and incomplete to allow us to use them to do significant social research on aggregate populations.
The Isaurians and the Early Byzantine Empire: AD 300-700
Hugh Elton (Trinity College, CT)
During the Early Byzantine period, men of Isaurian origin were of great importance to the Empire. They constituted a large part of the imperial armed forces and one of them, Zeno, became emperor in 474. The heavy reliance by the army on these men from the mid-fifth century onwards is often said to be the result of emperors seeking a counterbalance to the Germans who had dominated in the fourth and early fifth centuries.
Although Isaurians have been the subject of much attention in the past, most of this has focused either on the Isaurian wars of the fourth century or on the reign of Zeno and a wider perspective is necessary to appreciate the role of Isauria in the Empire. Furthermore, recent work has called into question both the extent and impact of the German domination of the army, while political crises once interpreted as showing anti-Germanism (e.g. the Gainas affair) have been re=evaluated. With the traditional background to the influx of Isaurians now being called into question, it seems worth investigating systematically both the extent and impact of the Isaurians on the Early Byzantine Empire.
This paper outlines the contribution of Isauria to the military forces of the Byzantine Empire and suggests that there was little change from the fourth to seventh centuries in the numbers of generals and soldiers recruited from this region.
The most successful of these generals was Zeno. When he had become emperor, he promoted men he could trust, i.e. Isaurians, accounting for their short-term prominence in the late fifth century. The temporary Isaurian political success may be exaggerated by the contribution of the History of Candidus, an Isaurian, to the surviving source material. After Zeno's reign we continue to find Isaurian soldiers, though generals are present in smaller numbers. The political importance of Isaurians in the late fifth century was the result only of Zeno's elevation to emperor and this phenomenon had nothing to do with the presence of Germans at court or in the army.
Traditional Middle-Byzantine Family Values?
Dion C. Smythe (King's College, London)
The Prosopography of the Byzantine Empire, in co-operation with the BerlinBrandenburg Akademie's Prosopographie der mittefbyzantinischen Zeit, is a major research project of the British Academy, creating a computerised relational data-base containing all people related to Byzantium (interpreted broadly) mentioned in the sources for the period 641-1261. The main function of this paper is to open lines of communication and interaction between Byzanlinisls and the Prosopography, not to give a progress report on the project as it nears electronic publication of Volume 1 (641867), nor to outline the methodologies of data collection and storage.
By funding PBE, the British Academy intends to create a major historical resource for the English-speaking Byzantine world which would allow investigation of a wide range of historical questions. It is increasingly accepted as a truism of prosopography that what prosopographers do is not to examine and record the details of an individual's life and career, but to examine and record the connections between people. These connections are of two types. Firstly there are the connections between individuals which are recorded in the sources: we know that "x" was a blood relation of "y'"; we know that "a" succeeded "b" in a particular post; we know that "k" and "ni" were married [to each other]. Secondly, there are more abstract connections that can be drawn between members recorded in a prosopography: because of similarities in the career-line history of "p" and "d", by historical analysis we may draw conclusions about them, which are supported by the sources, but which are not proven by direct statements in our sources; because of lime-specific events recorded in the sources -- that "r" wrote to "s" five times, that "s" wrote to "t" promoting "r s" cause -- we may draw historical conclusions about the relationships between 'Y', "s" and "t", though those relationships are not explicitly stated in the sources.
In this paper I shall be making historical conclusions, based on prosopographical evidence I have collected from the sources for period III of PBE (namely 1025-1261). Claiming a form of droit du seigneur, I start with the easiest class of relationships between people in IIIPBE, namely family relationships. Broadly, these relationships can be classified into two sorts: relationships by blood-descent and relationships created by marriage-alliance. The manifestation of these two groups of relationships is termed "the family", a false universal present in every human society, but whose identifying characteristics vary from society to society. The main question I ask therefore is: what were the identifying characteristics of the middle Byzantine family? What was its structure? Who were its members? Could individuals exist outside that structure? Did the micro-structure of [lie Middle Byzantine family articulate "traditional Middle Byzantine family values"? If it did, what were those values? flow did the microstructure of the Middle Byzantine family reflect and interact with the state structure?
One problem with the evidence currently available is that it relates to individuals from the upper levels of society. In time, we hope that PBE wilt address this lack, but for the moment we must draw on the experience of these "movers and shakers" to formulate an upper social level model, with which to compare data from lower social strata when it becomes available. In a fifteen-minute paper I can only touch un these avenues of research, but in doing so I show how the structure of [tie 1'BE database can be used to answer historical questions and to promote and encourage interaction between the project and its natural users, working Byzantine researchers.
XII. WORD AND IMAGE AS INSTRUMENTS OF THE FAITH
Chair: Mary-Lyon Dolezal (University of Oregon)
1. Derek Krueger (University of North Carolina at Greensboro)
"Visual Metaphors for Narrative Representation in Early Byzantine Saints' Lives"
2. Glenn Peers (Waterloo, Ontario) "On the Sentience of Images ca. 815"
3. Dorothy Abrahamse (California State University, Long Beach)
"The Vita of David, Symeon and George: Sources, Structure and Date"
4. Federica Ciccolella (University di Roma I "La Sapienza")
"Basil I and the Jews: a Laudatory Poem of the Ninth Century"
5. Kathleen Corrigan (Dartmouth College)
"The Homilies of Gregory Nazianzen, Turin C.1.6, and Its Historiated Initials"
Visual Metaphors for Narrative Representation in Early Byzantine Saints' Lives
Derek Krueger (University of North Carolina at Greensboro)
Early Byzantine theories for the literary representation of saints drew comparisons to theories about the visual arts. Later, however, beginning with John of Damascus, the defense of icons appealed, among other things, to an analogy between the representation of the saints in visual art and the representation of the saints in words, whether in scripture, sermon, or saints' life. while the implications of this analogy for Byzantine art theory have been explored, the literary theory implicit in these arguments remains insufficiently understood. These eighth and ninth century iconophile arguments rest on coherent but as yet unrecovered notions of how Christian literature was expected to "work." Developed in the fourth and fifth centuries, this early Byzantine literary theory or theology of literature proceeded by making analogy with how visual images functioned, ironically the reverse of later iconophile arguments. From the beginnings of the hagiographical tradition, authors such as Athanasius in the Life of Antony, Palladius in his Lausiac History, and Theodoret of Cyrrhus in the Historia Reliciosa drew comparisons between their literary efforts and visual representations in painting and sculpture. While drawing on classical traditions comparing biography with painting, these hagiographers infused their conception of art and literature with an Athanasian theology of creation that stressed that human beings were created in the image of God. Athanasius applied visual metaphors to present Antony as a model of Christian life. Palladius presented his tales as analogous to visits to see the ascetics of the Egyptian desert, and thus composed portraits, and Theodoret made extensive exploration of how narrative and static visual images imitated God's artistic activities both in the creation of human beings and in the inspiration of the composition of salvific literature in the Scriptures. Finally, these analogies linked the emerging Christian literature to a theology of Christian life based in an ethics of imitation that invited the faithful to conceive of their lives both as a writing of a saintly life and the painting of a holy image, encouraging Christians to represent the saints in themselves.
On the Sentience of Images ca. 815
Glenn Peers (Waterloo, Ontario)
While doubts concerning the early date of the Chalke Gate epigram had been expressed earlier, in 1990 Marie-France Auzepy gave the most comprehensive argument for dating this epigram to the early part of the second phase of Iconoclasm (815-43). In her view, the story of the destruction of the Chalke Gate image in the 720s was likely a pious fraud perpetrated by the iconophiles of the inter-regnum of 787-815 to rally supporters to the side of time-sanctioned image worship. Irene and Constantine VI, the regent and emperor at the time of the re-introduction of images in 787, set up an image on the Chalke Gate and claimed that they had restored what had previously been in that place: an image of Christ incarnate. At the proclamation of the second phase of Iconoclasm in 815, the emperor Leo V (r. 813-20) made a conscious return to the successful reign of the eighth-century iconoclasts. If this chronology holds true, then the Chalke Gate epigram must be situated in the context of the second period of Iconoclasm and not the so-called 'primitive' period of the eighth century.
This paper seeks to examine one aspect of this epigram, namely the notion of the breathless, speechless image, and its classical antecedents, in order to describe the more selfconsciously learned ninth-century context in which this epigram was created. The topos of images that occupy the boundary of sentience and non-sentience is ancient and the Anthologia graeca is replete with examples of writers describing the life-like qualities of images. These poems often play with the barriers that separate humanity from its manufactured replicas. This paper examines the relation between iconoclastic epigrams, written by John the Grammarian or someone in his circle, and antique poets such as Meleager (fl. ca. 100 B.C.E.), Lucian (ca. 115-after 180) and Christodorus of Coptus (fifth/sixth century).
Rather than exemplifying a primitive understanding of anti-image theology, the Chalke Gate epigram ought to be viewed as a conservative but cultured attempt at describing the limits of representation as understood by iconoclasts ca. 815. It derided images that rendered Christ as "a voiceless shape and bereft of breath". Iconoclastic images were truly sentient: they were Christians who ordered their lives according to scripture and who, therefore, worshipped ethically and intellectually.
This paper will also briefly examine the more fully elaborated iconophile defense, written by Theodore of Stoudios (759-826) in reaction to the Chalke Gate epigram. For Theodore, the true defense rested on the image's ability to depict literally the hypostatic union of the human and divine in Christ. Theodore also marked out the limit of animation that Christians can expect from an image: images are necessarily lifeless but they nonetheless have direct relation to their models that Theodore described in Trinitarian terms. Both epigram and iconophile defense showed a central issue at stake around 815: the negotiation of the frontier of representation, sentience or non-sentience, as the elite Byzantine theorists understood it.
The Vila of David Symeon and George Sources. Structure and Date
Dorothy Abrahamse (California State University, Long Beach)
The Piln of David, Symeon and George has been a controversial text since it was first published in 1898. Purportedly a narrative of the life of three brothers whose dates span more than a century of the iconoclastic Controversy, the text includes descriptions of the impact of the second Iconoclastic period on the island of Lesbos and the events surrounding the restoration of icons in 843 that would make the text a unique witness if its composition can be accepted as genuine and early. It has been cited in this way by almost every historian of Iconoclasm. Historical and linguistic improbabilities, along with a late manuscript and the absence of any other reference to these three brothers in hagiographical tradition, however, have plagued its recognition, and controversy about the date of composition continues. Scholars have dated the composition of the text variously to the mid ninth century and to the late Byzantine period, and have characterized it as "une vie fanlaisisle" or as a source of "bonne nolae" for ninth century history. Inclusion of a translation and footnotes of this text in the forthcoming Dumbarton Oaks collection of iconoclastic saints lives has given me a chance to examine the structure of the vita and its relation to hagiographic and chronicle sources in some detail This paper will examine the relation between sections of the text, and will argue that it represents a compilation of separate hagiographical traditions associated with Lesbos, whose separate concerns and backgrounds can be identified. Thus, the life of David, the oldest brother, can be shown to have no connection with Lesbos, or to George, but to be related to monasteries in coastal Asia Minor that were eventually connected with Lesbos. The sections on Symeon and George also include contradictions and discontinuities that suggest the melding of two originally separate traditions. References in the text give a confused story of what appears to be three separate St. Georges, bishops of Lesbos during the Iconoclastic period. Can these traditions be reconciled? Although the author may have used oral as well as written hagiographical traditions, parts of the vila clearly draw on written sources. Central sections of the text are related to the chronicle sources of the second iconoclastic period, especially the sources of Theophanes Continuatus and Genesios. This paper will examine the dependence of the visa on existing and lost chronicle sources as a means of providing additional information for the dating of those sections of the text. With this evidence, it should be possible to revisit the arguments of scholars who have argued for early or late dates of the text in the light of a "layered" compilation process. With careful reading, it may be possible to identify sections of the text as early material, and to distinguish between Lesbian and Constantinopolitan writings, while still accepting a much later date of final compilation for the text.
Basil 1 and the Jews: a Laudatory Poem of the Ninth Century
Federica Ciccolella (Universil3 di Roma 1 "La Sapienza")
Two 'Exhortations to. the Jews' in anacreontic verses, composed by an unknown Chrislophoros Prolasekretis and preserved in cod. Vaticanus Barberini gr. 310 (saec. X ex.), have never been taken into account as documents of the relationship between Byzantium and the Jews. Nor has been made, until now, any attempt to ameliorate the poor edilio princeps of Pietro Ma« anga (Anecdoia Graeca, vol. 11, Romae 1850, 667-70), faithfully reprinted in the Patrologia Graeca (vol. 117, 1179-1182). The first poem, though, provides sonic interesting insights regarding one of the most meaningful episodes of Basil I's reign, the conversion of the Byzantine Jews to Christianity.
The poem begins with a short exhortation to a Jew to "lay aside the veil of his soul" (tines I-4), in order to understand the right meaning of the words of the Prophets. In fact dtc major part of the poem consists of a sequence of OIdTestamenl passages announcing the corning of Christ as the Messiah (13-80). The final verses contain the profession of Christian faith by the converted Jew (81-88), and Basil's prayer to Cod to accept from him "the gift of the newly-recruited flock" (89-100; "the emperor Basil" is explicitly mentioned on tine 91).
Basil's 'persecution' of the Jews, generally dated to 873/74, actually lasted all through his reign. According to some Jewish sources from the South of Italy (e.g. the Chronicle of Alnnlaaz of Oria and the penitential prayer of Rabbi Silano of Venosa), Basil's officers used tortures and torments to compel conversions. However, both Jewish and Byzantine sources (a g.Vira Basilii 95 =Tkeoph. cant. V, 341 f.CSHB) agree on the theological disputations between Jews and Christian theologians promoted by Basil: the Jews were summoned to dclcnd their faith, often in the emperor's presence. If they officially declared to renounce Jewish customs and to accept conversion to Christianity, they were offered appointments to offices and exemption from taxation. Such a policy is harshly criticized - as "a betrayal of Christ" - in a short essay attributed to Cregorios Asbcstas, meiropolile of Nicca and good friend of Phallus. Even Constantine Porphyrogenitus admits that it did not bring durable results (Theoph. cant. V, 342).
Christophorus' poem offers further evidence of this custom. The poem may have been composed to be performed (as evident from the indication of the musical mode in the title) for one of these format proclamations of faith in the presence of Basil, or, in any case, for sonic public ceremony in Constantinople, in which the Jews were solemnly baptized.
Although its general tone is rather conciliatory, the poem may be considered one of the few extant examples of the anti-Judaic apologetic of the ninth century: the dialogical funs and the Old Testament passages here quoted may be found in most of the works adversus Judaeos as well. Moreover, this sort of 'secular hymn, composed by an officer of the Byzantine court with evident encomiastic purposes, served Basil's attempt to emphasize the successes of his missionary endeavour, aimed at spreading the Christian faith both inside and outside the Byzantine empire, and, in this way, al justifying his ascent to ilia imperial throne.
The Homilies of Gregory Nazianzen, Turin C.I.6, and Its Historiated Initials
Kathleen Corrigan (Dartmouth College)
Turin C.1.6, an 11 th-century manuscript of the Homilies of Gregory Nazianzen, is best known for its wealth of historiated initials, some of which depict various performers from the hippodrome, e.g., acrobats, jugglers, musicians, wrestlers. Only a selection of the initials was published by Galavaris in his study of the manuscripts of the Liturgical Homilies of Gregory Nazianzen. Galavaris was primarily interested in describing the relationships among the various Gregory manuscripts and constructing a stemma for them. With regard to the initials in Turin C.I.6, he concluded that most of them have no relationship to the text they accompany. And after noting the "paradox ... that the love of this particular aspect of secular life found a place in homilies whose author often ridiculed the various spectacles . . . ;" Galavaris quickly moves on to the more comfortable area of religious imagery. It seems to me that this paradox, and the presence in a liturgical manuscript of such profane imagery needs to be further explored. In fact, the manuscripts of the Liturgical Homilies of Gregory Nazianzen contain many types of non-religious imagery: genre scenes, scenes from classical mythology, representations of pagan cults. We need to ask how such imagery might have functioned or been understood in the context of a liturgical manuscript.
In the present paper I will approach this topic through the study of Turin C.I.6. First I intend to explore the possible relationships between the initials and the text passages they introduce. Second. I hope to be able to speculate about the makers of this manuscript and perhaps even the social context in which it was made. The manuscript was written by several different scribes, who were probably also responsible for the initials. The first scribe, who I believe was in charge of the manuscript's production, writes in a "literary" hand, while the other scribes use a more formal liturgical script. The most interesting and imaginative initials appear in the sections written by the first scribe, and his designs are often copied in the other sections.
XIII. HISTORIOGRAPHY AND [.EARNING IN LATE ANTIQUITY
Chair:
John F. Mathews (Yale University)
l. Jacqueline Long (University of Texas at Austin)
"Memories of Zenobia"
2. Charles Pazdemik (Princeton University)
"Procopius and Thucydides on Freedom and Slavery"
3. Raffaella Cribiore (Columbia University)
"Books and Teachers' Models in Byzantine Schools"
Memories of Zenobia
Jacqueline Long (University of Texas at Austin)
Zenobia of Palmyra indubitably bore a fascinating character in her own day. She commanded men's loyalties enough to be credited with having directed Palmyrai s effective revolt IYom Roman authority in A.D. 270-272. Many modern scholars have endeavored to recover the contemporary Zenobia and her aims (Eugenia Equini Schneider, Septinria Zenobia Sehuste [Roma 1992] and Richard Stoneman. Palmyra and its Empire: Zenobia's Revolt against Rome [Ann Arbor 19921, to name only two recent books). But although coins and inscriptions of the uprising preserve Zenobia's image and titles as they presented them to contemporary audiences, Zenobia is drawn in most detail by later literary sources: at greatest length, in preserved Roman and Byzantine texts, by the Historia Augusta and by ZOSImUS (D. F. Buck, Anc. Hist. Bull. 9.2 [1995186-92 presumed that Zosimus echoes Eunapius closely in his account of the Palmyrene revolt, but cf. R. C. Blockley, Byzantion 50 [1980] 393-402).
The Hi.storia Augusto dilates on Zenobia's character. Elisabeth Wallinger has shown how its physical description of her improves on traits Suetonius ascribes to Augustus, carrying over with the portrait an implicit moral connnentauy (Die Frauen in der Historia Augusta [Wien 19901 142-43). Zenobia in the IIA foils both Gallienus and Aurelian, as the author emphasizes by making her contrast them explicitly when she explains why she set aside Roman rule (HA Tvr. Trig. 30.23). 1 shall show how the conflicting judgments the author makes of her serve alternate sides of Zenobia's double role.
Zosimus ascribes to Zenobia a "manly mind" when he reports that she succeeded Odaenathus in control of Palmyrene affairs, consonantly with the HA's more favorable remarks about her ((ppovrjpaTt 6vbpeiW. ZOS. 1.39.2: e.g.. viriliter inperante, HA Gall. 13.5). But for tire most part he belittles her initiative: he assigns military decisions to her generals, he repeatedly characterizes her movements as flight, and finally he asserts that she threw all blame for the revolt onto her courtiers, of whom Longimis in particular suffers nobly (Zos. 1.51.1-3, 54.1-2, 55.1-2, 56.2-3). Zosimus makes him foil Zenobia's conduct damningly.
These differences reflect not only differences in the Hisioria Augusta's and Zosirnus's sources for Zenobia and the Palmyrene revolt, but also fundamental differences in the ways the two authors construct their ideologies of ruling power and of femininity, which this paper will explore. Zosimus more simply disparages a woman's capacity to lead a state: the author of the IIA fentinizes traditional ideals of continence, thrift and bravery, creating a woman ruler whom Aurelian could feet no shame at conquering (cf. HA Tvr. Trig. 30.4, Zos. 1.55.3).
Procopius and Thucydides on Freedom and Slavery
Charles Pazdemik (Princeton University)
Both Procopius and Thucydides employ the concepts of freedom and slavery in contexts removed from the institution of human bondage in order to characterize the objectives and realities of imperialism. Each historian exhibits a fascination with the complexities of such relationships, and shows how the course of events contributes to ironic reversals of the terms.
Thucydides employs the terms douleia and eleutheria in order to distinguish the war aims of the Peloponnesians and Athenians. It emerges that the two sides are not merely schematized as the parties of freedom and slavery respectively, but that the terms themselves are contested within either camp. Within the Peloponnesien alliance, the Spartans characterize themselves as champions of Hellenic freedom, but do not escape suspicion, either from their allies or from the independent cities they attempt to defend, of harboring imperialistic aspirations of their own. The Athenians do not attempt to deny that their empire perpetuates a condition of slavery, but assert that the arrangement is the inevitable outcome of Athens' attainment of hegemonic power and a precondition of the freedom Athenians themselves enjoy, a natural reality which does not admit of moralistic considerations.
For his part, Procopius appears to be capable of making diametrically opposed judgments as to whether submission to Roman imperialism connotes freedom or slavery. Roman subjugation of barbarian peoples may be described as a passage from slavery to freedom or vice versa, as the context of the episode demands. Speeches delivered in the court of Persia decrying the imperialism of the Romans recall charges laid against Athens in the Peloponnesian congress of allies. Leading the Roman expedition against Vandal Africa, Belisarius adopts the stance of a Brasidas in urging his troops to regard the Libyans as fellow Romans, unwillingly subjected to an alien tyranny. At stake is not merely the safety of the Libyans but the legitimacy of the authority over the West claimed by Constantinople. The Italian War similarly emerges as a contest for the hearts and minds of the native population, whom the Byzantines address as fellow Romans returned to the fold, and to whom the Gothic defenders of the peninsula appeal as comrades and neighbors.
As is the case with the course of the Peloponnesian War, the trend of Justinian s wars of reconquest and liberation is toward moral degeneration and savagery. But one should not expect Procopius to have sought to construct rigid and facile patterns of correspondence between the parties to the Peloponnesian War and those of Justinian s wars, effectively subordinating the integrity of his own work to that of his predecessor's. His method of literary appropriation depends not only upon the resonance which is established between the two texts at a given point, but also upon the often ironic consequences of the realignment of such patterns as his work progresses. Both Procopius and Thucydides share an appreciation of the paradoxes of history, which shows among other things that would-be liberators may impose bondage and would-be masters may become slaves; Procopius expands the scope of such reversals by creating patterns of literary allusion which experience similar discontinuities, thereby enhancing the counterintuitive effects achieved through the development of the narrative. Such an approach tends itself to the texture of Justinian's wars in the West, which as Procopius experiences them are characterized not so much in terms of stalemate as in violent swings of momentum, represented most concretely by the vicissitudes of the city of Rome.
Books and Teachers' Models in Byzantine Schools
Raffaella Cribiore (Columbia University)
Evidence for the existence of textbooks that were produced professionally for use in schools in Byzantine Egypt is very scanty. In general, it is problematic to distinguish school texts from texts circulating among the general public. An exception can be made for a few early Byzantine manuals which present syllabaries and lists of words divided into syllables, since their elementary content clearly indicates that they are school products. These codices, written by professional hands on fine papyrus and parchment, were probably used by teachers to help children acquire a rapid command of reading. Books such as these, on the other hand, needed to be handled with special care and were too fragile to circulate in the classroom. Even though scholars generally refer to books as indispensable elements in acquiring literacy, it seems unlikely that teachers were in the habit of handing students fragile scrolls to be passed around, consulted, and copied. i believe that such functions were easily fulfilled by models inscribed by the teachers themselves.
Although some models of the Roman period were preserved, most of the school models coming from Egypt - I identified about forty of them - were inscribed in the early Byzantine period, up to the seventh century AD. Even though a few models were written on papyrus and on ostraca, wooden and waxed tablets were preferred because of their sturdiness, and because they could be erased and rewritten. Models were inscribed by teachers in proficient and fluent hands of large size, sometimes with the initials further enlarged. They often show the words divided into syllables or separated from each other by oblique dashes, spaces, or dots. Model texts served as copy-books to improve students' handwriting, as exemplars for students making their own books, or as reading-books that provided inexperienced readers with special lectional assistance.
An unpublished wooden tablet of the Berlin Museum inv. 13839, Packz 636-637, provides a fitting example. The tablet, which should be dated to the early Byzantine period, is inscribed on both sides with Homer, Iliad 2.132-146, 147-162. The text, within which the words are separated by spaces and oblique strokes, was used to practice reading. Besides a few other occasional lectional signs, apostrophe is consistently written. The hand is a good example of chancery style: it is clear, elegant, and very stylized, with tall and narrow letters. At the end there is a date, indicated by day and month.
The model considered above addressed the needs of a student who was studying Homer in a class taught by a grammarian. Models were especially useful at this level, and also at an elementary stage when dictation would not yet be frequently practiced. The passages inscribed on the models were regularly replaced by teachers when they had fulfilled their function. As models followed the growth and progress of students, their content continued to change, like the pages of real books.
XIV. BYZANTIUM THROUGH EASTERN EYES
Chair: Susan Ashbrook Harvey (Brown University)
1. Monica J. Blanchard (The Catholic University of America)
"The Zoology of Eznik of Kolb: The Nature of the Creatures"
2. Joel Walker (Princeton University)
"Crosses and Fire Altars: Sasanian Seals as Evidence for Christianity within the Persian Aristocracy"
3. Antony Eastmond (University of Warwick)
"Christians and Muslims in Trebizond: the Decoration of the Church of Hagia Sophia"
The Zoology of Eznik of Kolb: The Nature of the Creatures
Monica J. Blanchard (The Catholic University of America)
Eznik of Kolb, fifth century bishop of Bagrewand, composed a treatise of theology and apologetic in Armenian which has survived untitled in a unique manuscript. This work, variously known today as a treatise On God or a Refutation against the Sects, addressed perceived threats to Christianity in Armenia during the 440s from heretical and non-Christian movements, among them Valentinian gnosticism, Marcionism, Manichaeism, and Zurvanism. Emik's concerns for the Church in Armenia were rendered less relevant by historical events of the second part of the fifth century, and his work was left outside the mainstream of Armenian Christian literature. By and large modem scholars also have paid less attention to Armenian elements in Eznik's treatise than to his dependence upon Greek and Syriac sources such as Methodius of Olympus, Ephrem the Syrian, Aristides, and Hippolytus, to name a few. Emik's acquaintance with the works of these authors is not surprising, for he belonged to that first generation of Armenian churchmen who made available in the newly established Armenian script Armenian translations of Greek and Syriac texts. Eznik himself studied in Edessa and in Constantinople.
Eznik's work contains numerous observations on animal behavior. Domestic and wild animals as welt as creatures of classical mythology are described. Other creatures which appear in his treatise have connections with Armenian folklore and pre-Christian religious practices. One might mention the rich variety of dragons (vishap), and a dog-like ticking creature (aralez). These natural and supernatural creatures are featured in Eznik's attacks on astral determinism, dualism, and pagan worship. They are employed positively as well.
An investigation of the zoology of Emik of Kolb opens up several avenues of interest for Armenian studies. The purpose of this communication is threefold: to identify the natural and supernatural fauna in the treatise On God, paying special attention to Armenian art and iconography; to outline the deployment of these creatures in Eznik's formal arguments; and briefly to review similarities and differences in this regard with Greek and Syriac sources used by Eznik, with a view to highlighting his distinctively Armenian contributions.
Crosses and Fire Altars: Sasanian Seals as Evidence for Christianity within the Persian Aristocracy
Joel Walker (Princeton University)
In the year 614 when the Persian army captured Jerusalem, local noblemen, placed under torture, revealed the location of the True Cross. The leaders of the Persian army sought, however, not to defile, but (as East Syrian sources make clear) to honor the cross on which Jesus had been crucified(Ihe "Guidi Chronicle", discussed by B. Flusin, Anastase le Perse, 11, 170-2). Their decision to send the Cross in a solemn procession to Ctesiphon offers dramatic proof of the respect and influence which Christianity now commanded in the court of the King of Kings.
Khusrau It's Christian sympathies did not arise ex nihilo, but were built upon a broad base: the slow, but steady, expansion of Christianity within the late Sasanian aristocracy. Together with Syriac literary sources, Sasanian seals offer our best evidence for this fascinating, though rarely discussed, phenomenon. Much of the sigillographic evidence has become available only within the last twenty years. Judith Lerner's Christian Seals of the Sasanian Period (Istanbul 1977) gathered together for the first time in any language besides Russian the widely dispersed evidence. Using iconographic criteria, Lerner identified some 65 Sasanian (or in a few cases post-Sasanian) seats as Christian. The relevant seals include: solitary crosses of both "Latin" and "Greek" types; human figures carrying processional crosses, or in an orans pose with crosses in the background; and Biblical scenes, especially the sacrifice of Isaac and Daniel in the lions' den (though the last of these popular seat types were certainty used by Sasanian Jews as well as Christians). Most striking of all are those figures shown in traditional poses of Zoroastrian ritual, with crosses placed over the adjacent fire altar.
The seals published by Lerner and others are crucial, precisely because they show a side of Sasanian Christianity that our literary sources present only obliquely. Greek reports about Persian Christianity are usually anecdotal. Syriac and Armenian sources, though much more detailed and useful, can also be misleading, since they typically celebrate the virtue of the Persian Christian convert, who completely abandons his or her roots in Sasanian society and culture (e.g. Mar Isho'sabran of Arbela, mart. in 620). In fact, as the seals prove, a significant minority within the late Sasanian aristocracy clearly thought of themselves as being both fully Christian and fully Sasanian. The Middle-Persian inscriptions, which appear on many of the seats, underline this combination. The traditional Zoroastrian formula "Trust in the Gods!" (abastan o yazdan) appears on several seats with Christian iconography. (See Shaul Shaked, "Jewish and Christian Seats of the Sasanian Period," in Studies in Memory of Gasto Wiet, ed. M. Rosen-Ayalon (Jerusalem 1977), pp. 17-31; Ph. Gignoux, "Sceaux Chretiens d'l:poque Sasanide" IA. 15 (1980), 299-3151. Other formulae are more explicitly Christian, but derive from Zoroastrian prototypes (e.g. the invocation "Trust in Jesus!"). Just as many Christians continued to give their children traditional, Zoroastrian names (see, e.g., the names of the episcopal signatures in the Synodicon Orientate), others saw no offense in seating their goods with familiar, devotional formulae.
In short, the seal evidence illustrates the existence of a significant and confident Christian minority within the late Sasanian aristocracy.
Christians and Muslims in Trebizond: the Decoration of the Church of Hagia Sophia
Antony Eastmond (University of Warwick)
The church of Hagia Sophia at Trebizond is one of the most enigmatic Byzantine monuments to have been built in the thirteenth century. Its location outside the watts of Trebizond, its architecture, its sculptural decoration and its fresco programme all appear to be unique, making the church hard to analyse. This paper attempts to analyse the church by looking at it in the context of eastern Anatolian decoration, rather than metropolitan Byzantine decoration.
I argue that it is possible to use the decoration of the church of Hagia Sophia to give information about the cultural orientation of the Empire of Trebizond in the middle of the thirteenth century and that, as a royal mausoleum, the church reflected an imperial perception of the power of the Grand Komnenian emperors of Trebizond. The combination of elements on the south facade, drawn from so many different cultures, can tell us how the emperors of Trebizond perceived the nature of their empire as they battled to reconcile their universal imperial ambitions with the realities of their localised and very limited power.
In particular, this paper will consider the external decoration of the church, especially that concentrated on the south porch of the church, which acted as its principal entrance. This consists of two elements, a frieze from the Book of Genesis, showing the Fall of Man from the Creation of Eve to Cain's Murder of Abel, and a large number of non-figurative plaques, decorated with geometric designs. In previous scholarship, all these elements have been treated as unique decorations for a Byzantine church, and so have set Hagia Sophia out from all normal Byzantine analysis. However, by examining the decorations in the tight of the art of Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus, it is possible to show that the church in fact fits in to a well established tradition of local decoration. Georgian, Armenian and Seljuk parallels from Ani and Erzerum provide a strong context for the art of Trebizond in the mid-thirteenth century.
The influence of all these varying Christian and Muslim traditions on a Byzantine state (albeit it one cut off from Constantinople after 1214) shows the ways in which the Byzantines were prepared to incorporate diverse elements into their system of decoration, and so transform their
own artistic heritage. Thus, I will argue that the empire of Trebizond did not act as an anachronistic outpost of the Byzantine Empire, adhering to twelfth-century Constantinopolitan models of govermnent in the thirteenth century, but rather evolved to reflect the political realities and diversity of its contemporary eastern Anatolian situation.
XV THE BYZANTINES AT HOME
Chair: Alice-Mary Talbot (Dumbarton Oaks)
1. Helen Saradi (University of Guelph)
"The Subdivision of Large Houses in the Early Byzantine Period: The Evidence of the Papyri"
2. Douglas O'Roark (Mesa St. College)
"Parenthood in Early Byzantium as Evidenced by Chrysostom"
3. M.P. Vinson (Bloomington IN)
"The Empress Theodora and the Cult of Domesticity in Byzantine Hagiography"
4. Patrick D. Viscuso (Chantilly, VA)
"The Prohibition of Second Marriage for Women Married to Priests"
The Subdivision of Large Houses in the Early Byzantine Period: The Evidence of the Papyri
Helen Saradi (University of Guelph)
Subdivision of houses of aristocrats is a well known phenomenon in the early Byzantine period. It is attested in all excavated sites in the east and in the west. Large peristyle houses appear to have been abandoned by their owners and taken over by squatters. They subdivided the earlier spacious rooms with watts built with stones and mud, and showed no respect for the luxurious mosaics on which they built ovens, agricultural installations and workshops. The subdivisions are found in all the rooms, and in the porticoes of the peristyles. Unfortunately most of these later modest structures are dismissed by the excavators and cleared in order to reach the Roman level. Thus they are dated without precision, generally towards the end of late antiquity.
Several interpretations have been proposed to explain this phenomenon. First, that the wealthy owners had perished or left during plagues, earthquakes or invasions. Thus the abandoned houses were taken over by squatters. S.P. Ellis who studied the final phase of the Roman House ("The End of the Roman House", AJA 92, 1988, 565-576) concluded that the smatter aristocratic houses declined, white the few which were maintained or were built, were larger and their architectural form accommodated the owner's public functions in very large reception rooms. But no explanation is offered for the subdivision of the large peristyle houses, other than that of a decline caused by the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of very few aristocrats. A third theory has been formulated by Y. Thdbert focussing on cultural changes from the fourth century onwards ("Private Life and Domestic Architecture in Roman Africa", in A History of Private Life, 313-409). The compartmentalization of the private space is seen as a result of the new emphasis on private life and personal modesty. In other archaeological studies the subdivision of houses is interpreted as consequence of population increase.
It was only the late J.B. Ward-Perkins who suspected that perhaps some of these houses were subdivided by the owners for convenience or for rents, since they maintained only one entrance (Libyan Studies 17, 1986, 124, 152). Papyrological evidence confirms this suggestion and throws new tight into the conditions of the last phase of the late Roman house. Several papyri record teases of parts of houses including triclinia. The owners were wealthy aristocrats and their high rank in the imperial administration is often mentioned, white the tenants were common people. These documents date to the sixth and seventh centuries. In one transaction the owner rented two sides of a portico around a court with one room. It is known from earlier sources that wealthy Romans often teased rooms of their houses, but never central ones. Leases of triclinia indicate that this type of house and the life style associated with it had disappeared. The reasons of this phenomenon may be searched in the impoverishment of the class of the decurions, the move of some aristocrats to other residences, in the suburbs for instance, or a response to cultural changes. It is clear, however, that the process of disintegration of the ancient house was slow and that the invasions simply precipitated a phenomenon which had started earlier.
Parenthood in Early Byzantium as Evidenced by Chrysostom
Douglas O'Roark (Mesa St. College)
The voluminous writings of John Chrysostom provide an enormous resource for the social history of the early Byzantine Empire. In the past, scholarship on Chrysostom and other early Christian writers has tended to emphasize the ascetic aspect of their works. Evelyn Patlagean and others have gone so far as to suggest that beginning in the fourth century the ideas of sexual renunciation and the rejection of marriage and family became more widely accepted in the East and that this was a significant factor in the later population decline of the Byzantine Empire.
This paper draws on the mass of Chrysostom's homilies and essays to provide evidence for the role of fathers and mothers and the relationship between parents and children. Chrysostom peppered many of his homilies with anecdotes concerning daily life, and these anecdotes, once compiled, provide a vivid portrait of family life. Scholars have traditionally used Chrysostom's more explicit essays (De inani gloria et de educandis liberis) to gain perspective on family life, but only by examining the larger corpus of his works can one gain a more richly detailed image of parents and children. From the evidence of Chrysostom it is clear that some fathers had a tender and affectionate relationship with even their very young children. Chrysostom seems to indicate that fathers were closely involved in the daily lives of their children, and that fathers oversaw the education and discipline of their sons. It is interesting that in a number of different homilies and essays, Chrysostom exhorted fathers to arrange early marriages for their sons. This would seem to compromise the notion that Chrysostom was a forceful advocate for the ascetic lifestyle. Chrysostom provides less evidence for the role of mothers, but it is clear that mothers cared deeply for their children, and that their role seems to have been one of nurturing and support. Chrysostom portrays the mother as an affectionate refuge for children with a distinct role from the father. This is very different from the rote of the classical Roman mother. Suzanne Dixon has demonstrated that the role of Roman mothers tended to be that of disciplinarian and in this respect indistinguishable from the paternal role. It is noteworthy that in a variety of his works Chrysostom supported motherhood and promised that those women who raised their children in a healthy environment would receive a heavenly reward.
This paper uses the evidence of Chrysostom to provide a detailed image of the rotes and relationships of early Byzantine parents. The evidence supports the theory that, contrary to some earlier scholarship on premodern family structure, early Byzantine parents loved their children and had an affectionate relationship with them. The evidence also suggests that Chrysostom, the greatest of the early Christian rhetors, was not as vehemently ill-disposed toward marriage and family as has been previously argued.
The Empress Theodora and the Cult of Domesticity in Byzantine Hagiography
M. P. Vinson (Bloomington IN)
The Life with Encomium of the Blessed Empress Theodora (BHG 1731) is an unjustly neglected hagiographical work from the late ninth century. It has not, for example, been noticed that this vita is a (iaot)txot 1oyo, and conforms quite closely to the compositional guidelines for this genre as set forth by Menander lihetor. While the use of this rhetorical form affirms Theodora's imperial status, it carried with it the risk that she would be perceived to possess a ruler's masculine traits as well. Since this perception would undercut her claim to sainthood as well as the validity of the official acts of her reign such as the restoration of Orthodoxy, various strategies are employed to portray Theodora as a traditional wife and mother rather than a domineering political figure. For example, the brideshow which resulted in her marriage to the iconoclast emperor Theophilos performs the function of the mythological account of a monarch's origins that Menander urges upon the prospective encomiast. By basing Theodora's claim to the throne on the stereotypically feminine quality of beauty rather than the divine or royal pedigree attributed to male rulers, the author asserts the centrality of her role as wife and in the process defuses any political threat she may have posed to the established order. Other elements in her characterization reveal a similar motivation. For example, not only does Theodora never engage in dialogue with anyone outside her immediate family, but even more significantly, none of this dialogue takes place during her tenure as empress. This emphasis on Theodora's domestic qualities at the expense of her political position has paradoxical results. Theodora never openly challenges Theophilos on the question of icons and in fact plays no active role in his conversion or the restoration of Orthodoxy, which is attributed to her infant son, Michael III, and the heroic actions of iconophile men. Theodora's passivity accomplishes a twofold purpose. First, it allows the defeat of Iconoclasm to be presented as an exclusively male accomplishment and thus free from the taint of feminine interference. Secondly, it demonstrates Theodora's acceptance of her subjection to male authority, be it of church, state, or family, and thus affirms her status as an exemplar of feminine virtue. In both form and content the Life of Theodora exerted a profound influence on the subsequent hagiographical tradition. Other hagiographers adopted the form of the 0aotxtxo4 Xbyot to recount the lives of both. imperial and non-imperial women such as the empress Theophano and Irene of Chrysobalanton. Even more important is the shift which takes place in the representation of female sanctity. Where defiance of male authority and rejection of family characterized earlier heroines of the church such as Thekla and Matrons, Theodora's submissiveness and exclusive devotion to her duties as a wife and mother pave the way for a new kind of female saint defined not by her aggressive defense of the faith but by a willing acceptance of the traditional role of wife and mother even, or rather especially, if this role conflicts with her most deeply held religious beliefs.
The Prohibition of Second Marriage for Women Married to Priests.
Patrick D. Viscuso (Chantilly, VA)
The rotes and sexual life of women are often discussed in canon taws governing marriage and other types of relationships. This brief study will present the canonical and theological explanation offered by the Byzantine canonist Theodore Balsamon (c. 1140 - c. 1195) regarding the prohibition of second marriage for women married to priests. Balsamon was a patriarch of Antioch, known for his authorship of important legal commentaries and other canonical works. According to certain modem scholars, his prohibition of second marriage for these women was inconsistent with his other views on marriage, viz., the allowing of an active sexual life for priests and their wives in accordance with the Council in Trullo. This study will show that Balsamon's explanation for the impediment in fact presupposed the existence of such nuptial relations and that this was consistent with his thought on marriage.
Legislation prohibiting second marriage of priests' wives was not contained in those first seven ecumenical councils, early local councils, or writings of certain Fathers recognized as having canonical authority by middle and late Byzantine canonises. Nevertheless, an impediment for second marriage by wives of priests is discussed by Theodore Balsamon in his commentaries on canons forty-eight of the Council in Trullo and forty-four of Basil the Great, as well in his treatise entitled, Decision regarding the question that was discussed in a synod, concerning whether it is possible for one and the same man to be joined to two second cousins. In all three cases. the discussion may be characterized as "implied," i.e., although not directly the subject of the legislation in question, Balsamon introduces the question as related.
The forty-eighth canon of Trullo legislated that wives of candidates for the episcopacy separate from their husbands by mutual consent. Balsamon's commentary raises a number of issues regarding the nature of the dissolution and monastic tonsure. The canonist makes a comparison between such wives and the spouses of priests, emphasizing the impediments arising from ordination. Canon forty-four of Basil the Great deals with a deaconess who commits fornication with a pagan. Balsamon views the body of a deaconess as consecrated and required to be preserved from any profane or sensual use. A parallel prohibition is drawn concerning the bodies of priests. The wives of priests are in turn identified with the bodies of their husbands, and thus are forbidden remarriage. In Balsamon's treatise on the prohibition of consecutive marriage to two second cousins, the canonist makes an analogy between marriage and the Holy Trinity through the use of the word, "hypostases." This trinitarian analogy is extended and linked to Herennius Modestinus' definition of marriage. On the basis of this discussion, Balsamon proceeds to justify the prohibition of remarriage for priest spouses.
The study will draw general conclusions concerning Balsamon's view of nuptial relations and marital unity. An explanation will be attempted of the canonisl's characterization of priest wives as "ordained so to speak," and from this perspective, of his justification for prohibiting their remarriage. These conclusions will contribute to the broader study of sexuality, clergy, and women in Byzantine society.
XVI. VISION AND REVISION OF WORKS OF ART
Chair: Nancy P. Sevčenko (Princeton University)
1. Dorothy Hoogland Verkerk (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill)
"Job on a Dung Heap: An Appropriate Funerary Symbol?"
2. Stephen R. Zwirn (Dumbarton Oaks)
"Leaping Leopards in the Canon of Early Byzantine Art?"
3. Carolyn L. Connor (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
"Polychromy on Two Ivories of the Forty Martyrs: A Dramatic Reversal"
4. Ljubica D. Popovich (Vanderbilt University)
"Body Language of the Standing Prophet Figures: A Case of Creative Expression in Palaeologan Monumental Painting"
Job on a Dung Heap: An Appropriate Funerary Symbol?
Dorothy Hoogland Verkerk (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill)
A man sitting on a dunq heap contemplating the death of his children, the loss of his health and wealth, the derision of his friends, and the abandonment of his God is a stranqe choice of subject for funerary art. Job on a dung heap would seem to offer little comfort. Yet, he does appear in the catacombs and on sarcophagi; for example, in Cubiculum C in the Via Latina catacomb and on the Junius Bassus sarcophagus. This paper explores the meaning of this enigmatic figure in the context of Late Antique funerary practices.
The study of death in the Roman, the Late Antique and the Byzantine world is currently undergoing a "rebirth," stimulated in part by renewed interest in death ritual studies by anthropologists such as Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner and historians such as Philippe Aries and Frederick Paxton. For art historians the interpretation of Late Antique funerary art has been dominated by the theories of Paul Styger, Josef Wilpert and Andrb Grabar. Traditionally, the biblical scenes are viewed as either simple historical narratives with no symbolic funerary content, or they illustrate Jewish prayers of salvation with a one to one correspondence between the symbolic figure and the deceased. The figure of Job, however, is not discussed in these comprehensive theories. He is not an obvious figure of salvation such as Jonah or Noah. Most recently, Elizabeth Malbon has suggested typological meanings; yet, her interpretation remains in the realm of the intellectual and does not explore the power these images may have had over the mourners.
When placed in the context of funerary rituals, I believe the rationale for the inclusion of Job in funerary art is clearer and more meaningful. Although historians of Late Antiquity do not have access to rituals as do anthropologists of modern societies, the figure of Job appears in textual sources (the Biblical narrative, the Church Fathers) and in visual sources (the material culture of funerary art). The Job narrative, for example, was read as part of the preparation of the deceased for burial and the figure of Job was depicted in funerary art. The anthropological theories of Van Gennep and Turner offer a methodological approach that is useful in understanding the figure of Job and his role in funerary rites and art. Using the model of death rites as a tripartite process of separation, liminality, and reintegration, Job is the figure that embodies the soul's rite of passage from physical death to heavenly life. The role that Job plays in funerary art and ritual gives a more complex reading to our understanding of funerary art, adding a darker and more somber note. The figure of Job is not merely a typological figure of salvation, but a powerful surrogate figure who occupies the liminal spaces of society and the tomb.
Leaping Leopards in the Canon of Early Byzantine Art?
Stephen R Zwirn (Dumbarton Oaks)
After thirty years, some of the discussions and dates in the Catalogue of Jewelry in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection by Marvin Ross (1965) need to be reconsidered. I will reassess the impressive gold bracelet (acc. no. 38.66) with a pair of confronted, leaping leopards, identified by Ross as early Byzantine and assigned to the first half of the 7th century. In his treatment, no iconographical comparanda were discussed, nor mention made of the role of leopards within Dionysiac imagery. In fact, a fair number of comparisons do exist in several media, including jewelry, which will support an apotropaic intention for this type of image. In view of this interpretation and the chronological scope of the comparisons, the bracelet must be reevaluated and redated.
This reinterpretation will be developed within two larger, interconnected frameworks, art historical attribution and social meaning. Attribution is especially challenging in the case of unprovenanced and unusual objects. The establishment of a cultural milieu and a credible date are critical, for from this information further determinations, including meaning, are deduced. To the analyst dealing with luxury jewelry, these issues involve the evolution of taste and social function, which meet at the intersection of technical craft procedures and the imperatives of elitist self-definition.
The second frame deals with issues of social and cultural meaning. When dealing with subject matter rich in connotations, such as the Dionysiac leopards on the Dumbarton Oaks bracelet, determining its possible interpretation(s) within its proper social context makes a contribution towards cultural definition. How this issue is handled affects our conceptualization of the originating society: the late Roman world, or the late Antique world, or the early Christian world or the early Byzantine world; and conversely, how the concepts of such worlds affect the analyst's attributive procedure is a key concern in the process of art historical studies.
Polychromy on Two Ivories of the Forty Martyrs: A Dramatic Reversal
Carolyn L. Connor (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Two finely carved Byzantine ivories of the tenth century in Berlin and St. Petersburg present the same well known scene of martyrdom, the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste. The martyrs, clad only in loincloths, stand shivering as they freeze to death in an icy lake. The panel in the Museum fur Spiitanlike and Byzantinische Kunst in Berlin, and its almost identical twin, the center panel of a triptych al the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, present an obvious problem in their differing overall appearance. For to the naked eye the Berlin panel is milky white, unpainted ivory, whereas the St. Petersburg triptych is thickly painted with blue and gold. While my studies have shown that Byzantine ivories were consistently painted or stained, how should we interpret the contrasting appearance of these two pieces?
The two panels, both from triptychs, are similar enough in workmanship to posit they were made by the same workshop at around the same time; the question naturally arises whether they were also originally painted. On microscopic examination the Berlin panel proves to bear numerous traces of localized red, blue, and green pigment as well as gold; the St. Petersburg piece also has traces of green and red in addition to layers of the very prominent blue and gold. At one time both looked very similar, and resembled in their color scheme Byzantine paintings and icons of the same subject.
How they came to have their present appearance can be surmised because we know that over time ivories lose their applied colors through handling and through scaling as the material shrinks and swells with changes of temperature and humidity. When the pigment became patchy on the Berlin panel it was probably cleaned in order to regularize its appearance and to conform to more modern tastes for pristine white ivory. The St. Petersburg triptych, on the other hand, was repainted in blue and gold in an effort to partially restore the original medieval color scheme, producing the effect we see today. The restorer of the St. Petersburg triptych may not have produced a result pleasing to modern eyes, but he did apply the best materials; pigment tests have determined a high grade of lapis lazuli was used, carefully ground to produce maximum brilliance, in accordance with Byzantine tradition.
While the brightly painted St. Petersburg ivory gives a preponderant impression of the use of blue, the seemingly unpainted Berlin panel provides more acurate information about the original balanced color scheme of both -- a reversal of what we would expect. The chance survival of the two Forty Martyrs panels provides valuable testimony as to the fate and conservation of polychromy on Byzantine ivories.
Body Language of the Standing Prophet Figures: A Case of Creative Expression in Palaeologan Monumental Painting
Ljubica D. Popovich (Vanderbilt University)
In churches of the Palaeologan period, standing prophets were represented in architecturally confining spaces. In depicting these figures, artists creatively used a rich repertory of body language to avoid monotonous repetition. This body language, combined with garment folds and the placement of scrolls, provides the illusion of vivacious figures, animated by the messages they are receiving or delivering. Occasionally, the bodies of the prophets are very contorted in order to express an exalted state of mind (e.g., Ped: Holy Apostles). So far unexplored, the inventive combinations of poses and gestures, which are a part of an inherited visual language, are examined in this paper.
The primary stance chosen for prophets is the hip-shot position, giving the figures an Sshaped curve. When depicted in three-quarter view, they strongly resemble prophets from manuscripts (e.g., Vat. gr. 1153, cf. Fethiye Camii, Ravanica, etc.), and are usually writing upon their scrolls (e.g., Afendiko; Ravanica; Sofia: St. George; Kalenid; Resava). The mood-defining right arm can be wrapped in Initiation folds, a reflection of the pose of the classical author (e.g., Sophocles). Either arm is occasionally veiled by the garment, a visual element that is frequently explored (e.g., Fethiye Camii; Resava). In only one instance is a specific hand gesture associated with a particular prophet (Habakkuk). The gesture can also be dictated by the context (e.g., Dei;ani: Joel). These cases demonstrate a literal interpretation of text through visual means, one of the operative forces during the Palaeologan era.
The prophet Isaiah is frequently given one of the most recognizable gestures, that of a classical orator, although it is not his exclusive prerogative. This gesture is often employed with the prominently placed figure, usually south of the eastern axis (e.g., Kraljeva Crkva: Isaiah; Fethiye Camii: Moses; Nova Pavlica: Elijah). Infrequently, the right hand holds a scroll (e.g., Ravanica: Elijah; Resava: Jonah), or both hands grip a scroll, unrolled across the chest, thus perpetuating an old tradition (e.g,, Dura Europos; Ravenna: San Vitale). Predominantly, it is the left hand that carries the scroll, placed in various positions relative to the body. These rotulli often seem to defy gravity, as they curl and twist as if wind-blown (e.g., Kraljeva Crkva; Ljubostinja; Sofia: St. George). Scrolls are even represented hanging from hooks, while the prophet is inscribing his message (e.g., Resava). Such depictions of scrolls are not empty visual exercises, but serve as compositional counterpoints to the cascading folds of the himatia.
The best Palaeologan artists are aware of rhythmical movements of all the figures forming a group, even when they are separated by various devices (windows; painted columns). These rhythms are explored as a means of molding single figures into a unified composition (e.g., Fethiye
Camii; Nova Pavlica). The painters used the elements of body language as the letters of a visual alphabet. Through creative combinations of inherited features, they compose the single figure, he it a prophet or an apostle. The results may resemble but seldom duplicate one another. In rare instances of identical figures, one ponders the possibility of existing prototypes, or models inherited within a workshop or a region (e.g., Jeremiah in Kraljeva Crkva and in Detani). Through the images of prophets the best among the Palaeologan painters demonstrate their creative abilities, in spite of the constraints of a well-established visual tradition, as well as their sensitive responses to the cultural requirement of a literal relationship of the image to the text.
XVII. METHODS OF WARFARE AND DIPLOMACY
Chair: George T. Dennis, S.J. (Catholic University of America)
1. Everett L. Wheeler (Duke University)
"Magic in Late Antique Warfare and Byzantine Military Theory"
2. Alfred Biichler (Berkeley, California)
"Leo the Deacon, Nikephoros 11 Phokas and Byzantine Martial Music"
3. Denis F. Sullivan (University of Maryland, College Park)
"Sappers in Military Manuals and Historical Sources: the Intersection of Pedagogy and Practice"
4. Liliana Simeonova (Sofia)
"The Fatal Abuse: Kantakuzenos' Embassies to the Bulgarians and the Serbs"
Magic in Late Antique Warfare and Byzantine Military Theory
Everett L. Wheeler (Duke University)
The paper explores magic as an element in the conduct and historiography of Late Antique warfare. Magic, taken as the performance of incredible acts (miracles) or the appeal to supernatural forces (divinities, demons, or supposed natural sympathies/antipathies) to achieve goals, is only discussed in current scholarship either in regard to private acts of individuals (e.g. curse tablets, protective amulets, medicinal cures, alchemy) or as an aspect of religion (e.g. epiphanies of gods/saints, thunderstorms or other natural phenomena seen post eventum as divine intervention in battles or sieges). Public use of magic to serve a state's military goats has not hitherto been a category of analysis: no monograph or substantial article exists on magic (as opposed to religion) in Ancient, Byzantine, Medieval, or Early Modern warfare. Although the paper cannot hope to resolve the vexed issue of distinguishing magic from religion, a subtext of the paper is to demonstrate magic as a factor in Late Antique/Early Byzantine warfare-at least as perceived in the sources.
The topic is of value to Byzantinists for two reasons. First, stratagems (the use of trickery, deceit, and indirect means in warfare) are the dominant motif of Byzantine military theory (Kaegi 1983); this motif is amply reflected in the Byzantine reverence for Polyaenus' stratagem collection (ca 162) and the numerous Byzantine paraphrases of Polyaenus' text (Wheeler, in Krentz/Wheeler 1994). Magic, classified with poison in Early Modem works of international law, forms a subset of the concept of stratagem and belongs to the poliorcetic branch of stratagemic literature, which approved morally questionable military acts, as opposed to the more scrupulous tactical branch. Second and paradoxically, the first and only real theorist of military magic was the Christian Julius Africanus, who dedicated his Kcaro( to Severus Alexander on the eve of the first Roman war with the Sassanids (232). In Keo toi Books 7-9 Africanus critiques the tactical failures of Rome's eastern army and proposes a strategy based on various magical stratagems for defeating the Persians (Wheeler 1996). Byzantine interest in Africanus is well attested: he must be the Urquelfe for Ps. Maurice, Strat. 8.2.99 (Dennis) on the use of poison, and the most extensive fragments of the Kea2oi are precisely these military sections that form the bulk of the tenth-century Apparatus Befficus (Zuckerman 1994).
The paper next addresses specific cases of magic under three categories: protection of cities and provinces; campaigns, battles, and sieges; and propaganda and ethnic stereotypes. Here will be discussed such cases as how statues, epigraphical texts, and pictures of Jesus were used to protect cities from capture; emperors' consultations with magicians and astrologers on how to defeat the enemy; epiphanies and natural phenomena (e.g. wind and thunderstorms) in deciding battles; and individual soldiers' use of amulets. Demonization of the enemy in propaganda wilt also be treated, e.g., Eusebius' allegations of Maxentius' and Licinius' resort to magic in the civil wars with Constantine, for which a precedent exists in Septimius Severs' propaganda against Didius Julianus in 193. Finally, magic in stereotypical descriptions of barbarians will be noted: Germans, Huns, Turks, Parthians, and Sassanids are alt charged with use of magic.
The paper concludes that in Late Antiquity allegations of the use of magic in warfare, though not new or unique to this period, seem to increase; magic from a particular author's perspective could be Christianized or demonized. Magic as a barbarian trait, however, was not simply contrived propaganda, but often reflected the religious practices of peoples outside the Graeco-Roman/Christian sphere of culture: e.g. Zoroastrianism had its own magic/religious rites to aid victory for its believers. Magic in warfare has an underground but constant history in pre-Modern era and seems to emerge especially in times of religious and inter-cultural strife: Alberico Gentili outlawed magic in his De iure belli (1598), as did Gustavus Adolphus in his articles of war (1621).
I.eo the Deacon, Nikephoros II Phokas and Byzantine Martial Music
Alfred Buchler (Berkeley, California)
In the third chapter of his History, Leo the Deacon describes Nikephoros Phokas in the spring of 963 in Cappadocia, exercising his troops amid the noise of trumpets (salpinges), drums (tympana) and cymbals (kymbala). Leo is using here, sometimes verbatim, the description of a similar scene given by Agathias. This very fact, however, makes it historiographically significant. Agathias, writing of Narses in 554, mentions only trumpets; drums and cymbals are 1,eo's own contribution.
The simulation of battle noises described by Leo was part of a Byzantine response to Arab tactics. The problem raised by Byzantine horses panicking at the sound of Arab drums had already been recognized in the Taktika of Leo VI. The traditional instruments of the Roman army were horns and trumpets, and behind the Atticist 'salpinx' of Agathias we can assume the boukinon (Lat. bucc ins) and touba appearing in the Strateaikon of Maurice. But these were principally signalling instruments, and there are warnings that confusion might be caused by the use of too many trumpets. The clangor of arms and the shouts of the soldiers provided most of the noise of battle.
In the Taktika, Leo VI limits himself to suggesting the use of Arab instruments in the kind of exercise which, according to Leo the Deacon, was actually carried out by Nikephoros Phokas. It should be noted that the possibility of such an exercise was predicated on the existence of a standing army accustomed to mass drills. No similar response appeared in the West, though the terror induced by Saracen and Turkish drums is a commonplace in the literature of Crusade and Reconquista. The Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle, probably compiled around 1140 at St.Denis, tells of Charlemagne having his knights muffle their horses' ears after a panic such as that described in the Taktika.
But beyond their use in exercises, Leo the Deacon's History suggests that by the second half or the tenth century the Arab instruments had become part of the regular equipment of Byzantine armies. According to Leo, drums and cymbals were used by Nikephoros Phokas on Crete in 961, and by John Tzimiskes at the siege of GCet Preslav in 971. In 1097 Alexios I will send drums and trumpets as part of his aid to the Crusaders besieging Nicaea.
Warfare with the Arabs, then, introduced to Byzantium the concept of instruments of music as tactical weapons. So far, however, it has not been possible to link these instruments to any of the instruments shown in contemporary Byzantine illuminated manuscripts; drums shown in these manuscripts seem to be associated principally with court ceremony and entertainment. Also, while 'boukinon' appears in the Taktika as a general term for military aerophones, no corresponding term has as yet turned up for the 'Arab' percussion instruments, though both taurea (ox-hide membranophone; cf. H. Gregoire, Byzantion 12 (1937), pp.301-2) and the later anakarades (kettledrums; cf. S. Karakases, Hellenika mousika organs, 1970, pp.50-54) need to be considered. The survival of taurea in the Slavic litavra (kettledrum; from *polytaurea: massed drums?) may also be significant in this context; however, a convincing linking of words, images and objects for the Byzantine military instrumentarium still lies in the future.
Sappers in Military Manuals and Historical Sources: the Intersection of Pedagogy and Practice
Denis F. Sullivan (University of Maryland, College Park)
Nikephoros Ouranos in his Taktika (ca. 1000) comments: "The men of old, in their conduct of siege warfare, constructed many devices such as rams, wooden towers, scaling ladders with various features, as well as tortoises and all kinds of other things which our generation has never even seen. It has, however, tried all these devices and discovered that of all of them, the more effective way, one the enemy cannot match, is undermining the foundations, all the more so if one does this with careful scrutiny and method, and has the accompanying and extremely helpful protection of the laisai" (tr. E. McGeer in Sowing the Dragon's Teeth, Washington, D.C., 1995, 161-163). Ouranos' successful military career lends credence to the historical value of his statement, as do his mention of laisai (10th century Byzantine tortoises for sappers) and his indication of empirical testing of the various devices. His reference to "careful method" and "the men of old" suggests acquaintance with techniques presented in classical and Byzantine military manuals.
The earliest reference to sapping in Greek historical sources is found in Herodotus (IV:200) of a Persian attempt on Barca about 512 B.C., the earliest prescriptive comments in Aeneas the Tactician. Among the Byzantines prescriptive discussion of siege mining can be found in instructional manuals ranging from the 6th century IIcpt Ycpaigyia; to a number of 10th century texts including the Poliorketika of Heron of Byzantium as well as Ouranos' Taktika. Descriptions of siege mining in Byzantine historians include Agathias (Narses' siege of Cumae), Leo the Deacon (Nikephoros Phokas' siege of Candax), Anna Comnena (sieges of Nicaea and Dyrrachion), Eustathios (siege of Thessaloniki), and Niketas Choniates (Andronikos' siege of Nicaea). The Arab chroniclers Ibn alAzraq al-Farigi and Dhahabi report an unsuccessful Byzantine attempt to take Amida in 950151 by tunneling under the wall.
In this paper I will consider classical and Byzantine prescriptive instructions for sapping a wall and the descriptions of such activity in the Byzantine historians. The goal is to identify tradition and innovation in Byzantine instructional manuals, and the relation between such instruction and actual practice. These interrelated texts provide a unique resource for viewing the general question of classical tradition and Byzantine reality - with the possibility that the former in this case remained quite useful in an area of Byzantine warfare not marked by significant technical change until the invention of the cannon.
The Fatal Abuse: Kantakuzenos' Embassies to the Bulgarians and the Serbs
Liliana Simeonova (Sofia)
The basic story of the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans has been well told by contemporary Christian historians. Their intense feelings about what befell the Balkan nations in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have found reflection in the bitterness with which they describe the failure of the Balkan governments to stop the triumphant march of the Ottoman armies. "God is punishing us for our sins" is the common refrain repeated endless times by the Christian authors. Yet, most of them present a more realistic explanation of these tragic events as well; they do not ignore the fact that their rulers failed to overcome their century-old rivalries and mutual mistrust in the face of the common threat. Neither did the Balkan rulers get rid of their old habit of abusing each other's diplomats.
One of the most eloquent examples of how disastrous the consequences of diplomatic abuse could be is the story of John Kantakuzenos' failed diplomatic initiative of 1351. Kantakuzenos had found it impossible to defend the Dardanelles against Murat 1; the emperor badly needed money for his navy and hoped that Bulgaria and Serbia would help him out. In his memoirs, the former emperor says that his envoys were first subject to adverse criticism by the Bulgarian tsar, John Alexander: he blamed the Greeks for having brought Turkish mercenaries to the Balkans. Soon, however, Kantakuzenos' initiative for establishing Bulgarian-Greek cooperation against the Turks became so popular among the population of the Bulgarian capital that they pressured their tsar to accept Kantakuzenos' offer. Yet, somewhat later, John Alexander broke his word and did not provide the promised aid; this he did under the influence of his brother-in-law, the Serb king, Stefan Dugan.
The so-called Fifteenth-Century Bulgarian Anonymous Chronicle, which describes the Ottoman conquest of South Eastern Europe from the early 1350s down to the 1420s, provides a different account of what happened. According to it, the Greek envoys were subject to terrible treatment at John Alexander's court; Bulgarians laughed at them, criticized them on behalf of their emperor, showered vulgarities against the Greeks' wives and mothers, and sent them empty-handed away. Kantakuzenos then decided to send an embassy to three Serb rulers, who held appanages in Stefan Dusan's empire. Once again, the Greeks were laughed at and abused, and the abuse extended to their wives and mothers; eventually, they were sent away with empty hands.
The Bulgarian emigre chronicler says that John Alexander came to pay dearly for his arrogance. Before long, the Turks crossed the Dardanelles, set foot in the Balkans and advanced against the city of Sofia. The tsar's two sons, John Asen and Michael, marched against them and felt in battle. Scared by this unexpected turn of events, John Alexander realized that he needed Greek cooperation: he quickly married his daughter to the future Andronikos IV Palaiologos, yet this move of the Bulgarian tsar's came only too late. The Serbs were punished for their arrogance too.
Thus, the Bulgarian Anonymous Chronicle - together with some other fifteenth-and sixteenthcentury Balkan sources - presents a more realistic explanation of the causes of the common disaster that befell the Balkan Christians: they agree that it was the Balkan decision makers' inability to seek consensus that led to the Christian forces' fatal defeat by the Ottoman Turks.
XVIII. CHURCHES AND THE BUILDERS' INTENTIONS
Chair:
Annabel Wharton (Duke University)
1. Frank M. Clover (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
"Count Ricimer and the 'church of the Holy Apostles"'
2. Irfan Shahid (Dumbarton Oaks/Georgetown University)
"The Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople: Who Built It and Why?"
3. Svetlana Popovic (Greenbelt, Maryland)
"Are Typika Sources for Architecture: The Case of the Monasteries of Theotokos Evergetis, Chilandari and Studenica"
Count Ricimer and the 'Church of the Holy Apostles'
Frank M. Clover (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
In Rome's Suburran District slands a small basilica known today as Saint Agatlia of the Collis. The ancient sources distinguish two stages in the early development of this church. For the second of these stages Pope Gregory the Great and the [look of the Popes bear witness to Gregory's dedication of the basilica (in A.D. 591 or 592) to the Catholic Faith, accompanied by the introduction of relics of Saints Sebastian and Agatha. Before this action the church had been all ecclesia Gothorum, a house of worship for the Arian Gollis during their occupation of Italy. Did Theoderic's Collis build this basilica? No indeed: the physical record points to an earlier phase of the church's existence.
The original structure dates from the fifth century. It had all the features of all ordinary basilica -- faqade, nave, two aisles and semi-circular apse. Before the vaulting collapsed in 1589, the apse bore the best indication of the church's origins. In the Half-dome was a mosaic depicting the Christ seated amidst the Apostles (hence the tentative original name of [tie basilica, tiled in the title of this abstract). The inscription accompanying the mosaic read: Ft (auius) Ricimer u(ir) inluslris magisler utriusau• mililiae palricius et ex cons(ule) ord(inario) pro uolo suo adornauit. Flavius Ricimcr received the patriciate and the western high command from the Eastern Emperor Leo 1 in A.D. 457, and held the western consulate in 459. Ricimer therefore had his dedication inscribed between A.D. 460 and 47'2, tile year of his death. Masters of Soldiers frequently became involved in ecclesiastical affairs during [lie late Roman Empire. Ricimer's generosity to the 'Church of the Holy Apostles' is therefore not surprising in itself. But did some particular circumstances inspire Picimer to adorn the apse of a small basilica? In attempting to answer this question, 1 will focus attention on a comparable act of generosity in A.D. 471, by Flavius Valila, another solider and relative of Ricimer, toward a small orthodox. church in Tivoli. Valila's action, occurring during tile civil war between Ricimer and the Western Emperor Anthemius (gerebatur A.D. 470-472), was designed to please [lie Orthodox Christian community, which opposed the Ilellenizing policies of Anthemius. 1 will argue that Ricimer's dedication is also a part of the same civil war. Ricimer needed alt the support tie could get in the death struggle with Anthemius.
The Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople: Who Built It and Why ?
Irfan Shafffd (Dumbarton Oaks / Georgetown University)
The question has been controversial, witness the dialogue or rather trialogue between Cyril Mango, Richard Krautheimer, and Thomas Matthews for which see Cyril Mango, "The Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus Once Again" BZ. 68 (1975), pp. 385-392. The first has given a most persuasive answer to the question namely, that it was built by Theodora for the colony of Monophysite monks in Constantinople.
There is much to be said for this view. And yet some doubts linger which suggest an alternative explanation, one not necessarily exclusive of Cyril Mango's. Although St. Sergius was greatly revered by the Monophysites, he was not a specifically Monophysite Saint but one honored and revered by Chalcedonians, indeed all Christians. Furthermore, this view leaves Justinian out of the picture. Procopius, however, credits him with the building, and no its. or studium is discernible in his statement, which would make it exceptionable. Finally, this view, centered on Constantinople, does not explain the proliferation of churches in honor of the Saint in various parts of the empire, especially Oriens.
The dating of the foundation of the church to AD 527 coincides with the outbreak of the First Persian War of Justinian's reign. That war scared the emperor, who had plans for the reconquest of the Roman Occident and it presented him with the unpleasant prospect of having to fight on two fronts. It is within this military context that the erection of the church may now be set: (1) Sergius was a military saint and the right one to invoke in this context; (2) and he was such, much more than other military saints of the Orient, such as Procopius and George, since these were buried in faraway Palestine, white Sergius was buried near the Persian border; (3) moreover, before his martyrdom, Sergius had most probably fought the Persians; (4) Justinian's special interest in him may have derived from the fact that he was not an Oriental Saint but presumably a Roman. Zacharia of Mytilene records the warm welcome accorded Pope Agapetus by Justinian because he could speak to him in Latin.
The dedicatory inscription in the church, however, involves both the emperor and the empress and so, it is possible that the two were inspired by different motives (which may or may not have been equipollent), a view that can accommodate that of Monophysite Theodora. But as far as the Emperor was concerned it is more than likely that he was principally concerned about the Persian War. Thus Sergius emerges as a palladium of Byzantium during the crisis generated by that conflict and appears as an instance of the enlistment of religion in the service of the State. The paper will go into some significant details in explaining this view, also with references to other monuments of the reign, which functioned in a similar fashion.
Are Typika Sources for Architecture: The Case of the Monasteries of Theotokos Evergetis, Chilandari and Studenica
Svetlana Popovic (Greenbelt, Maryland)
An administrative monastic charter iypikon - can be, occasionaly, the only surviving source for the physical appearance of a monastery. This is the case with the Theotokos Evergetis monastery, an 11th century foundation in Constantinople. Speculations about the architectural appearance of this monastery, based on its typikon are not lacking (recently LRodley, in The 7heotokor Evergetis and Eleventhcentury monashdsM ed. M. Mullett and Anthony Kirby, Belfast 1994,17-29).
I highly appreciate the information on architecture, which can be gleaned from written documents, including typika, as 1 myself have been confronted many times by similar situations where written documents were the only source of evidence. However in this specific context I would like to bring to light two other monastic typika, those of Chilandari and Studenica monasteries, two surviving 12th century foundations. Both of these typika were written according to the one of Theotokos Evergetis monastery. The typika of Chilandari and Studenica are, with few exemptions, identical documents written about 1200 by Sava Nemanjid (St. Sava). The "lheotokos Evergetis typikon was Sava's specific source. He actually copied most of the prescribed regulations and descriptions directly from the Evergetis typikon (cf. M. Zivojinovic, "Les Typika de Chilandar et d'Evergr6tis. Concordance et differences," ZRVI 33 (1994). fi5-102). 1 shall demonstrate in this paper how, virtually the same written rules, resulted in completely different architectural solutions_ Starting from the monasteries plans: circular at Studenica and orthogonal at Chilandari; monastery entrances: belfry-tower at Studenica and Gate-house at Chilandan; monastic churches: Romansque in style executed in white marble at Studenica and of Byzantine style at Chilandark refectories: one-storied at Studenica and two-stoned at Chilandaii, etc. Thus, the above mentioned architectural "similarities" bring us back to the architectural image of the Theotokos Evergetis. Is it possible to drew more than only the outlines of its physical structure from its typikon. My conclusion in this matter, based on the comparative analysis of three typika and the surviving architecture in two of three monasteries, has to be negative.
INDEX OF SPEAKERS/AUTHORS
Abrahamse, Dorothy
Blanchard, Monica J.
Bowes, Kim
Brauch, Thomas
Büchler, Alfred
Gakmak, A.
Caseau, Beatrice Chevallier
Ciccolella, Federica
Clover, Frank M.
Connor, Carolyn L.
Constantelos, Demetrios J.
Corrigan, Kathleen
Cowe, S. Peter
Cribiore, Raffaella
Deliyannis, Deborah Mauskopf
Downs, Joan Marguerite
Durukal, F.
Eastmond, Antony
Elliott, Thomas R.
Elton, Hugh .
Fine, John V.A.
Gouma-Peterson, Thalia
Gray, Patrick T.R.
Gregory, Timothy E. .
Ilicva, Annetta
Ivison, Eric A.
Kalavrezou, loli
Kolbaba, Tia M.
Kombluth, Genevra
Krueger, Derek
Laiou, Angeliki E.
Lampinen, Peter
Lindner, Rudi
Long, Jacqueline
Majeska, George P.
Mathisen, Ralph W.
McClanan, A.L.
Miller, Dean A.
Olster, David
O'Roark, Douglas
Ousterhout, Robert
Pazdernik, Charles
Peers, Glenn .
Popovic, Svetlana
Popovich, Ljubica D.
Rapp, Jr., Stephen H
Rocker, Frederick M.
Rothaus, Richard M.
Russell, James .
Satins, Daniel J.
Saradi, Helen
Schultz, Frederick A.
Shahid, Irfan
Shidlovsky, Nicolas
Simeonova, Liliana
Siven, Hagith
Smythe, Dion C.
Snively, Carolyn S.
Sullivan, Denis F.
Taylor, R. .
Teteriatnikov, Natalia
Verkerk, Dorothy Hoogland
Vinson, M.P.
Viscuso, Patrick D.
Walker, Joel
Weber, Ronald J
Wheeler, Everett L.
Young, Robin Darling
Zwirn, Stephen R.
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