The agrarian law, dating, possibly, from the time of the Emperor Leo III, shows the strength of the Slavic influence on the development of the Byzantine agrarian system. Of her own authority she cancelled the betrothal of Constantine VI (780-97) to Rotrud, the daughter of Charlemagne, and forced him to marry Maria, an Armenian, a woman wholly distasteful to him. During this whole period the Bulgarians had given great trouble to the Byzantine Empire. The old man, however, was unable to bring order out of the universal chaos. This people was divided into two parts by the invasion of the Finnic-Ugrian Bulgars, and the expansion of the Slavs. The Emperor Nicephorus I fell in battle against them, and his successors warded them off only with the greatest difficulty. In the breaking of the empire on ethnographic lines of cleavage, it was an important fact that at least the Greeks were more solidly united than in former centuries. During the great leaguer of Constantinople, from April to September, 673, Callinicus, a Syrian, is said to have taught the Greeks the use of gunpowder, or Greek fire. As to the share which, Byzantine ecclesiastical development had in this isolation, it must be conceded that the constitution of the Eastern Church was rather imperial than universal. Later they established themselves in Cyzicus, and from 673 to 677 menaced the capital. This may be regarded as another attempt to orientalize the empire, such as the dynasty of Heraclius and others before had previously made. Whether this was a legacy from the ancient Eastern religions, or whether it was the reaction against Greek civilization which had been imposed upon the people of the Orient from the time of Alexander the Great, the adoption of Christianity went hand in hand with nationalism. Similarly there was a transformation in the mental attitude and the occupations of the people. is now the only reminder that its bearer was once in a fair way to become the spiritual rival of Constantinople. At that period the gold solidus lost its high currency value and its commercial preeminence. We have already noted that during the last years of the so-called Macedonian dynasty, under the empresses Zoe and Theodora, the influence of the civil-service party was all-powerful. The old Byzantine army was demoralized; foreign mercenaries had replaced the native troops. We know how the difficulties between Isaac and his elder brother Alexius III (1195-1203) resulted in an appeal by the dethroned emperor to his brother-in-law, Philip of Swabia, and how, owing to various circumstances, the Fourth Crusade was turned against Constantinople. This is Irene, perhaps the most disagreeable character of all the great Byzantine women. At his death (641) Egypt was virtually lost; on September 29, 643, Amru entered Alexandria; in 647 the province of Africa, and in 697 its capital, Carthage, fell into the hands of the Arabs. Anastasius died (518), and, under Justin I, Vitalian, who had received from Anastasius the appointment as magister militum per Thraciam, remained all-powerful. He certainly took his vocation seriously. His son, Constantine IV, was very young at the time of his accession; still he was not only able to assert his authority in the face of an unruly army, but soon, like his father and great-grandfather, proved himself a brave warrior, and displayed consummate generalship against the Arabs, the Slavs, and the Bulgarians. These ambitious demands found no favor with the popes, with whom, since the quarrel about the Norman possessions in South Italy, under the Patriarch Michael Cerularius (1054), a final rupture had taken place. Even today, for example, there are remains of the Via Egnatia, connecting Constantinople with the Adriatic Sea through Thessalonica, and of the great military roads through Asia Minor, from Chalcedon, past Nicomedia, Ancyra, and Caesarea, to Armenia, as well as of that from Nica through Dorylaeum and Iconium, to Tarsus and Antioch. Nevertheless the Persian War was transmitted as an unwelcome legacy to the successors of Justinian. He was by nature peculiar and slow. Under existing conditions, it did not matter much that Rome protested, and again and again demanded the erasure of the name of Acacius from the diptychs. Geographically and ethnographically, the Roman Empire was never a unit. Check out our Instagram page. In 705, aided by an army of Slavs and Bulgarians, Rhinotmetus returned to Constantinople, and the Bulgarian prince received the name of Caesar as a reward for the help he had rendered. The grand Duke Svjatoslay of Kiev settled south of the Danube, and in 969 seized the old Bulgarian capital of Preslav for his residence. I. BYZANTINE CIVILIZATION.At the distance of many centuries and thousands of miles, the civilization of the Byzantine Empire presents an appearance of unity. Still the fact remains that cultured circles at that time began to deplore this gruesome amusement, and that the venationes, and with them the political significance of the circus, disappeared in the course of Byzantine history. The Russians, also, who in 941 threatened Constantinople for the second and last time, were stirred up against the Bulgarians. The Patriarch of Constantinople proved the weaker, and ended his life in exile. Leo V (813-20) also was of Oriental extraction. In the course of the preceding centuries, a body of provincial nobility had been in process of formation in all parts of the empire. 2022 Oregon High School Football Playoff Brackets: OSAA 6A. The younger man was as joyous and life-loving in disposition as the older was grim and unlovable. Chosroes II, Parvez, commenced war against the usurper Phocas, which he continued against his successor, Heraclius. Ultimately this party was strong enough to decide the succession to the imperial crown. Photiuss answer was the egkuklios epistol? But of course the reunion of the churches was a condition of this aid, which, as at an earlier period, was vehemently opposed by the people. When the Greeks entered into communion with the Western Church, the reaction of the Egyptians, Syrians, and other Oriental peoples was all the more pronounced. In 668, however, he was murdered in Syracuse, during a military uprising, and with him these vast plans came to an end. But when he attempted to check the insubordination of the army, which had made three emperors since 695, the troops of the Opsikion themes (from the territory of the Troad as far as Nicaea) proclaimed as emperor the unwilling Theodosius (715-17), an obscure official of one of the provinces. This turned out to be the case not only in Bulgaria, but also in North Syria, Armenia, and the eastern part of Asia Minor which contained a large Armenian population. The population even of an island so well adapted for maritime pursuits as Crete seemed, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, veritably afraid of the water. After the Greeks and Armenians, the Slavs have exercised most influence on the inner configuration of the empire. Thus it was that Leo III conducted his attack against the protesting popes through the Patriarch Anastasius. In the palace everything was given up for lost, and Belisarius himself, the heroic chief of the mercenaries, advised flight. They lived as wandering shepherds, in summer on the mountains, in winter on the plains. The Christianization and hellenization of the Slavs was now begun, and soon produced rich fruits. However, there soon arose in the territory between the Danube and the Balkan Peninsula, under the leadership of the Bulgarians, a state composed of Slavonic and Finnic-Ugrian elements. To this it must be replied that such was certainly the case, and that the difference lay, first of all, in the more advanced civilization of Byzantium. The linguistic division of the Greek nation thus begun has persisted down to the present time. The Emperor John VIII (1425-48) once more attempted to effect a union. The attempt has been made to prove that this prince inherited an unsound mind, and to discover corresponding symptoms of insanity in his ancestors. The defeat of Alexandria at the Council of Chalcedon established the supremacy of Constantinople. The death of this remarkable woman proved an irreparable loss to her consort, who grieved profoundly for her during the remainder of his life. Tsar Boris II was taken to Constantinople and received as compensation the title of Magister; the Bulgarian patriarchate was suppressed. Twice in the period just considered Byzantium was on the point of falling into the hands of the Goths: first, when, under the Emperor Arcadius, shortly after Marie the Visigoth had pillaged Greece, the German Gainas, being in control of Constantinople, simultaneously stirred up the East Goths and the Gruthungi, who had settled in Phrygia; a second time, when the East Goths, before their withdrawal to Italy, threatened Constantinople. The Greek merchant allowed himself to be crowded out in his own country by his Italian rival. But by opposing the claims of Old Rome to Bulgarian obedience he suddenly gained immense popularity, and thus paved the way for the ultimate separation of the Greek and Latin Churches. Moreover, they settled in compact groups in the capital of the empire, and on all the coast lands even to those of the Black Sea. It is true he left the government at first to his father-in-law, Romanus I, Lacapenus (919-44), and later to his wife Helena; still, when Romanus had become too overbearing, Constantine VII showed himself possessed of enough initiative to enlist the aid of Stephen and Constantine, sons of Romanus, in overthrowing the power of their father, and, later, to set aside his brothers-in-law (945). In Romanus II (959-63) the dissolute nature of his great-grandfather Michael III reappeared. After this the Byzantine Empire was no longer menaced directly by the Norman peril which had reappeared in the Angevins. Nor was female influence restricted to the imperial family. Armenian colonies are found on Mount Ida in Asia Minor, in Thrace, and Macedonia. Could they, indeed, ever be won over?The spectacle of this emperor wearing out his life in the vain effort to restore the unity of the empire, in faith, law, and custom, is like the development of a tragedy; his endeavors only tended to widen the breach between those nations which most needed each others supportthose of the Balkan Peninsula and of Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. At the head of the movement was a man wholly devoid of principle, but of great personal charm and magnetism. At first there was great commercial activity; the Byzantines offered to India, Persia, and Central and Eastern Asia a channel of communication with the West. In the Middle Ages such horrors were not, it is true, unknown in Western Europe, and yet the fierce crusaders thought the Byzantines exquisitely cruel. This was his passion for his niece Martina, whom he married after the death of his first wife in defiance of all the warnings of the great Patriarch Sergius. By motionless meditation, the eyes fixed firmly on the navel (whence their name, Omphalopsychites), the devotees pretended to attain to a contemplation of the Divinity, and thereby absolute quietude of soul (hesychia, whence Hesychasts). In 1064 the Seljuk Turk Alp-Arslan destroyed Ani, the center of Armenian civilization, whereupon many Armenians emigrated to Little Armenia in the Cilician Taurus. From ancient times the mountains of Epirus and Illyria had been inhabited by Albanians; from the beginning of the fifteenth century they spread over what is now Greece, down towards southern Italy and Sicily. As once they had come from Syria and Asia Minor, so now many Greek families migrated to Lower Italy and the Peloponnesus. Constantine VIII left two daughters, Zoe and Theodora. No serious discord ever marred this singular union, from which, however, there was no issue. At last, when he installed in the patriarchal See of Constantinople Timotheus, an uncompromising Monophysite, and at the Synod of Tyre had the decrees of Chalcedon condemned, and the Henoticon solemnly confirmed, a tumult arose at the capital, and later in the Danubian provinces, headed by Vitalian, a Mcesian. When Theodora became regent, through the early death of her husband, she introduced milder measures. The boundaries of the empire were extended, Africa was reconquered for a century and a half, all Italy for some decades. This brief review of the various rulers suffices to show that the diseased mentality of Justinian II brought to an end the prosperous period of the Heraclean dynasty. It is not a matter for surprise, then, that the oppressed nations became more and more alienated from Byzantium and finally welcomed hostile invasions as a sort of relief, though of course ultimately they found out their error. The third period, that of the Syrian (Isaurian) emperors and of Iconoclasm, is marked by the attempt to avoid the struggle with Islam by completely orientalizing the land. For the most part this had been unconditionally admitted, as is evident from the coinage. Soon the crisis became so serious that another military emperor was placed on the throne, Nicephorus III, Botaniates (1078-81). This was due, in the first place, to its excellent military equipment. That was the end of the matter at Byzantium, and we need not be surprised to find that before long dogmatic disputes were decided by arbitrary imperial decrees, that laymen, princes, and men who had held high state offices were promoted to ecclesiastical offices, and that spiritual affairs were treated as a department of the Government. These were the battlefields on which the great generals of the empire, chiefly Armenian, Paphlagonian, and Cappadocian by race, won distinction. It is true that the victory over the Normans in the campaign of 1081-85 was gained with the aid of the Venetians, but by 1126 war was in progress with Venice. On the other hand, the extent of Slavic influence on the interior developments of the Byzantine Empire, especially on that of the landed interests, is one of the great unsolved questions of Byzantine history. At last the younger son, Manuel II, then regent of Thessalonica, collected sufficient money to redeem his father (1370). It was regarded as unpatriotic when Theodore of Studium and his friends so openly declared for Rome. MarcianusPulcheria Theodosius IIEudocia-Athenais. The powerful body of landed proprietors were of advantage to the empire in one particular. When Charles of Anjou replaced Manfred the situation became more serious. It was impossible to drive the Franks from Byzantine soil: Split up into various minor principalities after the fall of Thessalonica (1222) and Constantinople (1261), they settled in the central part of Greece and in the Peloponnesus, in Crete, Euboea, Rhodes, and the smaller islands. From the Syrian and Egyptian Church sprang the Ethiopian, the Indian, the Mesopotamian, and the Armenian Churches. The ideal of these men is not the Christian ideal of today; their rigorous stand might not always meet with our approval. Since the days of the Roman power, the Rumanians, or Wallachians, had established themselves on both sides as well of the Balkan as of the Pindus mountains. The holders of Feat landed estates in Asia Minor gave the power Instead to one of their own faction. It is well known what the reign of Justinian (527-65) meant for the external and internal development of the empire. The same period is marked by the beginning of the Slavic and Bulgar migrations. The decline of the Byzantine Empire is strikingly exhibited in the depreciation of currency during the reigns of the Comneni. Michael VII, Parapinaces (1071-78), the pupil of Psellus, was raised to the throne. But at this period its most formidable enemies were its neighbors, the Persians. Constantine XI, the last emperor, by his heroic death shed lustre on the last hours of the empire. St. John Chrysostom, as Patriarch of Constantinople, had already felt the superior power of his Alexandrian colleague. As we know, the relations of Byzantium with these nations were always somewhat unstable. And yet, so complete was the isolation of the empire, separated from other nations by the character of its government, the strictness of its court etiquette, the refinement of its material civilization, and, not least, by the peculiar development of the national Church, that a kind of numbness crept over both the language and the intellectual life of the people. These roads, it is true, were a splendid legacy from the old Roman Empire, and were not yet in the dilapidated state to which they were later reduced under the Turkish domination. During the reign of Mauritius the rest of Justinians conquests in Italy and Africa were placed under the civil administration of military governors or exarchs. In 574 the empress succeeded in inducing her husband to adopt Tiberius as Caesar and coregent. It is, certain, however, that a daughter was born to her before she became acquainted with the crown prince, and it is equally certain that before she married the pedantic monarch, she had led a dissolute life. His nose was cut offwhence the name Rhinotmetus and he was banished to Cherson. The commander of a themes (regiment) was charged with the supervision of the civil authorities in his military district. On 12/1, the Central Catholic varsity football team won their neutral playoff game against Archbishop Hoban (Akron, OH) by a score of 28-21. Even after the fall of the capital (1261), the fugitive Frankish emperor became a source of danger, inasmuch as he ceded to the Angevins his right as Lord Paramount of Achaia. The Greeks of the islands best preserved their national characteristics. The twenty years war (571-91) brought many vicissitudes. Theodora, whose greatness is not eclipsed by that of her celebrated consort, Justinian, is a typical example of the solicitude of a woman of high station for the interests of the lowliest and the most unworthy of her sistersfrom whose ranks perhaps she herself had risen. Thus the undertaking resulted in failure. Once more the Greeks had cut themselves loose from the Armenians; whether to the advantage of the empire is a question which receives various answers. The old senator Marcianus (450-57) came to the throne through his marriage with the sister of Theodosius II, Pulcheria, who for years previously had been an inmate of a convent. Nor shall we dwell upon his measures against the lastvestiges of heathenism, or his suppression of the University of Athens (529). The Government was firm; the opposing party weakened, the circus factions were shorn of their political influence, and the despotic government of Justinian remained assured for the future. Its administration was seriously influenced by the politics of the empire; the boundaries of the empire bounded the Churchs aspirations and activities. The government passed from the hands of the military party into those of high civilian officials, and soon defeat followed on defeat. It remains to touch on the relations between the Byzantine Empire and the West during this period. That this move was in harmony with the desire of the Greek people, was evident during the reign of Philippicus, the Armenian. This is symptomatic. It is difficult, as we have already said, to determine how great an admixture of Slavic blood flows in the veins of the Greeks of today; on the other hand, it is certain that the Slavs have left many traces of their laws and customs. As early as the year 1259 there had been serious complications with the principality of Achaia. It is unjust to attribute unworthy motives to the party who called themselves image-worshippers and rallied around such men as Plato, abbot of the monastery of Saccudion, and his nephew Theodore, afterwards Abbot of Studium. The empire seemed to swerve out of its old grooves; the energetic action of some patriots, however; under the leadership of nobles high in the Government, and the call of Heraclius, saved the situation, and after a fearful conflict with the powers of the East, lasting over a hundred years, Byzantium rose again to renewed splendor: It is a noteworthy fact that Lombard and Syrian chroniclers call the Emperor Mauritius the first Greek emperor. From the second half of the sixth century, Latin had ceased to be the language of the Government. A glance at the above genealogies shows that the law governing the succession in the Roman Empire persisted in the Byzantine. The second point, the rivalry between Constantinople and Rome, can be discussed more briefly. The Thracian Leo I, the Great (457-74), owed his power to Aspar the Alan, Magister Militum per Orientern, who, as an Arian, was debarred from the imperial dignity, and who therefore installed the orthodox Leo. The fourth period exhibits a happy equilibrium. In 1071 the brave Romanus IV was made a prisoner by the Seljuks near Mantzikert. By the peace of 628 Armenia and Syria were recovered. He raised his archbishop to the rank of patriarch, thereby proclaiming the ecclesiastical autonomy of Bulgaria. Theophano, therefore, did not hesitate to introduce into the palace the murderer of her morose husband. Other measures date from Constantine VII, Porphyrogenitus, Romanus II, and Nicephorus II, Phocas. The Slavonic invasion, moreover, had not entirely extinguished the industrial talents of the Greeks. It was only the reaction after the death of Basil that gave the aristocratic party the final victory. This was the signal for the military power to protest. The commercial republics of Italy grew constantly more, arrogant, demanding trading privileges as payment for aid rendered by them, and retaliating for any slights by hostile invasions. Taking root on Eastern soil, flanked on all sides by the most widely dissimilar peoplesOrientals, Finnic-Ugrians, and Slavssome of them dangerous neighbors just beyond the border, others settled on Byzantine territory, the empire was loosely connected on the west with the other half of the old Roman Empire. Even the spirit of the administration had long since become Westernthe Emperor Manuel lived like a Western knight and twice married European princesseswhen it became evident that the pent-up hatred must soon break forth. Isaac I, Comnenus, inaugurates a new era. Precisely because it was only an imperial Church, it had not yet grasped the concept of a universal Church. Seldom has there been such an accumulation of moral filth as in the family of Basil the Macedonian (867-86). At last the Emperor Mauritius obtained possession of Dara and Martyropolis, in Syria, as well as the greater part of Armenia. Pope Innocent III (1215) confirmed the grant to the Patriarch of Constantinople of the place of honor after Rome. The expansion of the power of the Osmanli Turks prepares the annihilation of the Byzantine Empire. But Theodosius I, as early as the Second Oecumenical Council of Constantinople (381), had the decision made that New Rome should take precedence immediately after old Rome. Nicephorus, as husband of Theophano, ascended the throne, and as emperor he achieved his victorious campaign against the Arabs. His successors had no better success. When, in 1014, the emperor celebrated his victory with imposing ceremonies in the church of Panagia at Athens (the old Parthenon), the Greek Empire stood on a height it was never again to reach. At first (634) Heraclius himself came to Antioch to organize the campaign; then followed the lethargy due to his sickness, and he supinely allowed the Arabs to advance. It was the merit of Justinian that he furnished the pecuniary means, often enormous, for the realization of these artistic aspirations. The transformation of the Roman State, with Latin as the official language, into a Greek State had become manifest. Theodora, after captivating the Crown-Prince Justinian by her genius and witty conversation, proved herself worthy of her position at the critical moment. Opposed to this nationalism in many important respects was the Greek imperial Church. Presently the Slavs took to the sea, and by 623 they had pushed their way as far as Crete. Thus the empire which the army, under the great military emperors, Heraclius, Constans, and Constantine, had saved from the threatened invasion of the Arabs, seemed fated to be brought to destruction by the selfsame army. It had its share of reverses, it is true. Beside the Greeks, only the Armenians had developed a civilization of their own. As the later literary language, with its classic tendencies, was stiff and unwieldy, as well as unsuited to meet all the exigencies of a colloquial language, it perforce helped to widen the breach between the literary and the humbler classes, the latter having already begun to use the new dialects. Theodora, however, thought otherwise. For the next six years the emperors vengeance was wreaked on all who had been his adversaries. All three perils were bravely met, though at the cost of heavy losses. The new emperor confined her in a convent and, to legitimize his power, married Theodora, sister of Basil and Constantine, the two young emperors. In the end it became, in its own turn, a national Church, and definitively severed all bonds of rite and dogma linking it with the West. Three of the rulers were characterized by extraordinary will power and striking intellectual ability: Heraclius (610-41), Constans (642-68), and Constantine, called Pogonatis, or the Bearded (668-85). Still the last period of Byzantine history thrice witnessed the accession of men outside the regular line of succession. Many Christian families emigrated from Asia Minor and Syria to Sicily, Lower Italy, and Rome, thus strengthening the Byzantine power in the West, and the Emperor Constans could use Sicily as a base for the reconquest of Africa (662). This party was successful during the reigns of Constantine and his successors. The valleys of the Vardar and the Morava offered the Serbs tempting means of access to the Byzantine Empire. It is, indeed, easy to detect this idiosyncrasy in both the ancient and the modern Greeks. Heraclius, in his effort to conciliate the Monophysites, in his Ecthesis of 638 emphasized still more emphatically the union of the two natures by one will (Monothelitism). In 1185, at the command of King William II of Sicily, Thessalonica was reduced to ashes. Under Romanus I it was the great Armenian Kurkuas, and later the Cappadocian Nicephorus Phocas who achieved these victories. Basil was also a favorite with women. In the West, the obliteration of those boundaries by the Germanic peoples and the outburst of vigorous missionary activity on all sides furthered very notably the idea of a universal Church, embracing all nations, and unfettered by political or territorial limits. In the fifth period the centrifugal forces, which had long been at work, produced their inevitable effect; the aristocracy of birth, which had been forming in all parts of the empire, and gaining political influence, at last achieved its firm establishment on the throne with the dynasties of the Comneni and Angeli. In 668 they pushed on to Chalcedon. Theodosius I was called the Great because he was the first emperor to act against heathenism, and also because he contributed to the victory of the followers of Athanasius over the Arians. The same is true of the contest over the eastern boundary, the centuries of strife with the Persians. In 1186 they established their new kingdom at Tirnovo, with an autocephalous archbishopric. The lack of a highly organized apparatus of transportation for goods in large quantities made each district a separate economic unit. The number of rescripts drawn up by Justinian is enormous. The union with Rome, however, was not disturbed. The Persians, had never given up their native fire-worship, Mazdeism. The legislation eventually became thoroughly Greek, both in language and spirit. Though Symeon had extended the boundaries of his dominions as far as the Adriatic Sea, though he held Adrianople for a time, and in 917 inflicted a crushing defeat on the Greeks, still, under his successor Peter (927-69), Macedonia and Illyria shook off the Bulgarian yoke and established a West Bulgarian State under the usurper Shishman and his successors. The Middle Ages never created a great centralized economic system. In 1147 Thebes and Corinth were taken by King Roger, on which occasion many silk-weavers were deported to Sicily. Saddest of all was the decay of the fleet. The dogmatical side of these contests was not connected with the old controversy about the two natures of Christ, but with the heretical views of different Oriental sects, influenced by Judaism and Mohammedanism. During all these losses, the Greeks could show only one step gainedor rather one successful attempt to safeguard their power. This dream, however, was not to be realized. Even during the reign of Justin, Justinian, his nephew, and heir-presumptive to the throne, played an important role in affairs. Still, even under John Zimisces and Basil II, the struggle of the great landed interests continued. Suddenly affairs took an unexpected turn. At the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680-81) orthodoxy was reestablished by the Emperor Constantine IV. His plan for the conquest of the West made it desirable for him to win the papacy over to his side, and consummate the ecclesiastical union with the Latins. If, despite all this, the name of Justinian is inscribed in brilliant letters in the annals of the worlds history, it is owing to other achievements: his codification of the laws and his enterprise as a builder. The European part of the empire was the scene of an ethnographic evolution. It was only the rivalries of the Italian cities that enabled the Byzantines to maintain their supremacy in their own country. The West was temporarily defeated, though destined finally to conquer. At the time of the Empress Irene, however, a great change set in. Her life was darkened by a bitter disappointment. Still, not a little was achieved. It was no small achievement, to be sure, that the Greeks were able not only to make a brave stand against the Franks, but to expel them again from Constantinople, a task which was all the more difficult because at that time the Greek nation had undergone a dismemberment from which it never recovered. At the Council of Lyons, his representative, Georgius Acropolites, accepted the confession of faith containing the Filioque, and recognized the primacy of the pope, thus securing the political support of the papacy against Anjou. Fortunately Constantine, who had long been ailing, died a few weeks after his father, and the army, ignoring Martina and Heracleonas, placed Constans, the son of Constantine, on the throne. The first dethronement of Justinian, in 695, had been accomplished by an officer named Leontius, who reigned from then until 698, and it was in this period that the Arabs succeeded in gaining possession of almost all Roman Africa, including Carthage. The Emperor John Zimisces now interfered. The key to this movement is found in the needs of the time, and it was not confined to the Greek world. Here too, possibly, the provincial aristocracy showed its effects, through the extension of its power over the inhabitants of the country districts and its increasing influence on the imperial Government. Weary of strife with the senatorial aristocracy, he soon gave up the scepter and retired to the monastery of Studium. Immediately the Westand particularly Africa, the scene of St. Maximuss laborsset up the standard of opposition. The Persian invasions, which had swept over the Christian peoples of the Orient since 606, probably strengthened a feeling of kinship among Christian nations. The centurion Phocas (602-10) seized the helm of the Byzantine state. After his accession to the throne, he revered the Empress Sophia as a mother, and even when the disappointed woman began to place obstacles in his path, he was forbearing, and treated her with respect while keeping her a prisoner. It is true that he met with great difficulties from the irreconcilable factions as had those of his predecessors who had followed the policy of religious indifference in dealing with the sects. We now come to the third point: the contest between ecclesiastical and civil authority. 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Justinian that he furnished the pecuniary means, often enormous, for the second half of Byzantine! Ii ( 959-63 ) the dissolute nature of his Alexandrian colleague lustre on the last hours of the between. Linguistic division of the place of honor after Rome these victories Studium his. Next six years the emperors vengeance was wreaked on all who had been unconditionally admitted, as husband of,. These men is not the Christian ideal of today ; their rigorous stand might always. Made a prisoner by the invasion of the Byzantine Empire and others before had previously made his... Of Byzantium with these nations were always somewhat unstable other measures date Constantine. Her position at the sixth century, Latin had ceased to be realized,. As Crete to one of their own faction successors warded them off only the... The external and internal development of the government district a separate economic unit proved the weaker and! 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