#theodoric

Gold tremissis struck by Theodoric "the Great", Ostrogothic ruler of the Kingdom of Italy from 493 to 526 CE, on behalf of Anastasius I, ruler of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire from 491 to 518. Minted at Mediolanum (Milan), the coin emphasizes the solidity of Anastasius' rule, as well as his nominal sovereignty over Theodoric. On the obverse, the bust of Anastasius, wearing diadem and cuirass, is shown. On the reverse is the figure of Victory, holding a wreath in her right hand and a cross at her left, with a star beside her. Beneath her is the legend CONO(B); commonly found on Byzantine gold currency, it refers both to the city of Constantinople and to the weight of the coin.

In reality, Theodoric was the political and military equal of Anastasius, but the two men got along well and avoided collision between their spheres of influence. The situation would deteriorate after Anastasius' death: his successor Justin connived with the Roman Senate, hoping to reconquer Italy, and Theodoric executed some of his counselors, including the great writer and theologian Boethius, on charges of treason.

a bunch of artfights for @dragontamer75

The Battle of the Catalaunian Plains 451 (near Châlons; the Romans, Franks and Visigoths under Aetius defeat the Huns under Attila).

“The Battle of the Huns - Hunnenschlacht”

The Byzantine Empire and the City of Rome: A Medieval Standoff Between Remnants of an Empire

An Original Essay of Lucas Del Rio

Note: One argument that I make in this essay is challenging that the end of the Roman Empire was in 476. Initially, I intended for the essay to be an outline of the history of the Byzantine Empire and how it carried on the legacy of ancient Rome through the medieval era. However, some research on how the original empire split and the subsequent demise of the west caused for me to dispute the date of the latter. After more research, I discovered other examples by more experienced writers of similar arguments, but I have attempted to provide an original analysis. It is not my only focus in this essay, although it is a key one. I have previously mentioned the year 476 on this blog as when Rome fell, so I would also like to officially reverse this position. Even though I regularly read history, there is still a lot that I can learn. Every new bit of knowledge has the potential to make me reconsider my many opinions. Much of this essay concerns events prior to the dawn of the Middle Ages.

           Just about everyone, including people with little to no interest in history, have a general idea of the Roman Empire and its history. It is a familiar story of a city-state in what is now Italy that became what is still to this day one of the most impressive realms ever seen. A popular uprising ousts the Etruscan kings, a republic is established, they fight war after war and conquer country after country, the generals become too powerful, a series of civil conflicts turn the republic into an empire, and an increasingly dysfunctional society is able to be destroyed by hordes of “barbarians.” Most of these events are true to a large extent, even if the specific details are often oversimplified and thus sometimes misunderstood. Unfortunately, one of the most significant and iconic of such events is also one of the most misunderstood in the many eras of human civilization. The part of Roman history that society has distorted to the greatest degree is both when empire was destroyed and the role that “barbarians” played in its dissolution. Different historians have proposed diverse theories on this matter, but this will provide one additional view.

           It is often said that the ancient era ended and the medieval era began with the fall of the Roman Empire. Another common statement is that this change occurred with the destruction of the “Western” Roman Empire, as the Byzantine Empire was originally formed from the east. The Byzantines would last throughout the Middle Ages, and its own collapse is regularly cited as the conclusion of that time period. Before going any further, this discussion must begin with the process of how the Roman Empire was partitioned several centuries prior to the dawn of the Middle Ages. By the 100s, Rome was at its peak, controlling all of the land surrounding the Mediterranean, plus large amounts of the Middle East and parts of Europe as far away as England. Such a large empire was beginning to prove quite difficult to maintain, however. Events that happened in the 200s have been labeled “the Crisis of the Third Century.”

Emperor Alexander Severus assumed the throne in 222 at the age of thirteen. He succeeded former Emperor Elagabalus, who was assassinated by the Praetorian Guard for his incompetence. Characterizing the reign of Alexander Severus was increasing violence and unrest. Four years into his time in power, a military campaign against the Parthians ended disastrously, followed by a poorly planned invasion of Germania. He, too, was later killed in 235. Up until then, there had been twenty-six Roman emperors over the course of well over two hundred years. Between the death of Alexander Severus and the year 284, there were twenty-two as countless military leaders vied for power. By the 270s, breakaway states had formed that renounced Roman rule. “Barbarians,” such as the Goths and the Vandals, began to conduct routine raids within Roman territory. It would be Emperor Diocletian who managed to return some stability to the empire.

In an era of Roman history when the Praetorian Guard and other elements of the Roman armed forces were the ones determining imperial succession, Diocletian came to power by defying these elements of the society that he lived in. Arrius Aper, who commanded the praetorians, arranged for Emperor Numerian, his son-in-law, to be killed. Before Arrius Aper was able to proclaim himself emperor, he was assassinated by Diocletian. Once in power, Diocletian took the first step in establishing Eastern and Western Roman Empires. Concluding that an administration in the city of Rome was incapable of governing such enormous of an empire, he appointed his own son-in-law, Maximian, to rule the west from its traditional capital in 285. Meanwhile, Diocletian, who was a native of the Balkans, preferred to rule the east from Nicomedia. Perhaps most importantly, Diocletian still had the final say in any policies made in the west. For the first time in Roman history, the ultimate imperial authority no longer rested in Rome itself but rather in lands in the east that it had conquered long ago.

This new system of two emperors ruling two separate portions of the empire did not restore it to its former glory. The empire was still dealing with foreign invasions and uprisings by renegade generals. By around 300, however, the situation was calming down. Emperor Diocletian was able to spend the last few years of his life focusing on internal policies to help to further stabilize the Roman world. Such policies included new systems of governance, military organization, and taxation, plus a preoccupation with ridding the empire of Christians. His health soon started to fail, so Diocletian stepped down in 305, as did Maximian at his request. More civil war followed, and Constantine the Great reunified the Roman Empire after being victorious in the west in 312 and then the east in 324. However, control over the empire did not return to the city of Rome.

As Constantine was the first of the emperors to convert to Christianity, he desired a new capital for the newly Christian empire. He selected Byzantium, a city near Greece that the emperor said was chosen for the Romans by God. After the city underwent refurbishments, Byzantium would then be called Constantinople. Constantine died in 337, and for a time, the empire remained united, albeit with Constantinople as its capital. Issues of dynastic succession caused it to split once more in 395. This time the partition would be permanent, and the two halves became autonomous. Up until now, all of this history is widely accepted. It is in the 400s that this changes. The typical story is that in this century the Western Roman Empire was shattered by “barbarians.” Generally, it is said that the final blow was delivered in 476 by Odoacer, a warrior-king of the Germanic Sciri tribe, when he ousted Emperor Romulus Augustulus.

           There is no doubt that “barbarians” greatly weakened the Western Roman Empire. The Romans had increasingly been dealing with invasions by tribes of foreigners for many years leading up to 476. Over time, these attacks were posing a greater and greater threat to the power of Rome, as they caused it to lose the vast tracts of land that had once been its empire. This could not have been any clearer in 401, when the Visigothic King Alaric I, who had once been a Roman ally, invaded Italy. After several failed offensives, Alaric and his forces outright managed to loot the city of Rome nine years later before withdrawing from the western capital. However, some additional facts about the events just described demonstrate that the future overthrow of Romulus Augustulus would be nothing unique. When Alaric brought his army into Italy, the leader in Rome was Emperor Flavius Honorius. In 409, a year before Rome was ransacked, negotiations between the Romans and the Visigoths led to the appointment of Emperor Priscus Attalus. His reign was short-lived.

           The appointment of a Roman emperor by “barbarian” invaders indeed demonstrated the dwindling power of the western empire. At the same time, the fact that it occurred at this date reveals that invaders forcing regime changes on the Romans was happening well before the capture of power by Odoacer. It would actually end up becoming a routine event in the years following the first such time, which had been when Flavius Honorius was deposed. Seizures of the Roman imperial throne by assassinations and usurping existed even at the peak of the empire and especially during the Crisis of the Third Century. In the 400s, the only difference was that outsiders had become involved in the process. Some might argue that the situation with Odoacer was distinct because the new leader installed was not a Roman. However, prior Roman emperors had come from other parts of Europe, and Odoacer himself had been an officer in the imperial army only six years before coming to power. More importantly, the remnants of the west did not lose their Roman character under the leadership of Odoacer. During his rule, Roman coins were still minted, the Roman Senate maintained its traditional authority, and some former Roman territories outside of Italy were regained.

           It might be more historically accurate to refer to Odoacer as Roman Emperor Odoacer, as the Western Roman Empire had not genuinely died. Something that had occurred and become unreversible was the split between the west and the east. Whereas at first the two central governments in Rome and Constantinople were allies and later ambivalent towards one another, now they were increasingly hostile. Odoacer played a huge role in this, although it almost certainly had little to do with his ancestry. Rather, it was about power. Unlike the west, the east had not seen its fortunes decline over the course of the 400s. The Eastern Roman Empire remained prosperous, and its territories had seen far fewer “barbarian” incursions. Stability in the west was now returning under Odoacer, and his conquest by 480 of what is now Croatia meant that the two empires were again sharing a border. To put it simply, the west was resurgent, and the eastern leadership in Constantinople saw Odoacer as to blame. Soon to befall Europe, and the true dawn of the Middle Ages, was not the immediate fall of Rome but a showdown between the Romans.

           Initially, not everything was going poorly between the west and the east when Odoacer assumed power. On one hand, Emperor Zeno, who had controlled the east since 474, considered Julius Nepos, the predecessor of Romulus Augustus, to be the rightful emperor of the west. However, Zeno allowed Odoacer to hold the title of patrician, essentially making him a member of the Roman aristocracy. The situation between the two emperors changed in 484 after Odoacer made the decision to give aid to a rebellion in the east led by General Flavius Illus. Zeno then allied with the Rugii tribe of the Danube River Valley and persuaded them to attack the realm of Odoacer in retaliation. While the Rugii had been defeated by 488, Zeno next convinced Ostrogothic King Theodoric the Great later that year to do the same. Emperor Zeno accomplished this by promising that he would permit Theodoric to rule Italy in exchange for a cessation of attacks on the Eastern Roman Empire.

           The relationship between the west and the east had turned into a proxy war of sorts, with Odoacer assisting a renegade general while Zeno supported an invasion that he did not lead directly. A battle in August of 489 saw the Ostrogoths victorious. They formed a peace agreement with Odoacer in 493, which was supposed to give both himself and Theodoric partial control over Italy. However, Theodoric personally killed Odoacer to avenge the deaths that the latter had caused among the Rugii, as the Ostrogoths and them shared a common ancestry. Now Theodoric ruled Italy, although the region was now once again under the authority of the Eastern Roman Empire. Even as the official king, many of his decisions required approval by the imperial throne in Constantinople. What is more, the Ostrogoths living in Italy still occupied a lower social rank than Romans, as they were denied citizenship and the right to serve in the Senate. Despite these restrictions, Theodoric did prove to be an effective leader. Italian cities, which had fallen into a state of disrepair amidst all the recent turmoil, were restored. Theodoric also retook former territories of the Western Roman Empire in various regions including parts of what are now France and Spain.

           Theodoric passed away in 526, and the Eastern Roman Empire, which historians commonly call the Byzantine Empire by this point, wasted no time. Again facing the problem of a western rival, the Byzantines knew that the death of a leader as successful as Theodoric was an opportune time to eliminate their competition. Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, who had assumed the throne in 527, ordered an invasion of Italy in 535 and directed the capture of Rome itself the following year. However, the campaign was costly for the Byzantines. When they had finally conquered all of Italy in 562, the cities of the region, including Rome, lay in ruins. Justinian, while often regarded as the greatest Byzantine emperor, had this effect for his dominion more generally. He oversaw the conquests of other lands that were once provinces of the Western Roman Empire, but in doing so he greatly exhausted the finances of the Byzantine Empire.