Suddenly Late Antiquity Is Hip with the Squares
The frozen banks (use imagination)
It’s December 31, jazz fans.
The victorious confederates pursued their march, and on the last day of the year, in a season when the waters of the Rhine were most probably frozen, they entered without opposition the defenceless provinces of Gaul. This memorable passage of the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never afterwards retreated, may be considered as the fall of the Roman empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the barriers, which had so long separated the savage and the civilised nations of the earth, were from that fatal moment levelled with the ground.
(Gibbon, Chapter 30)
I’ll emphasize (I’ve avoided personalizing this blog, but that seems to be changing) that I use this space to present analogies that are deliberately imperfect; like it says in the “About” page, it’s the contrast that’s meaningful. It’s been a hell of a year, although there’s plenty more to come. Frankly I thought 2014 was worse, but I have my biases. I’ll counterpoint Gibbon’s passage with something obviously random:
For three years there have been waves of violence and conflict in South Sudan, driving over three million people from their homes, over of a million of them fleeing the country altogether. Since July of this year the situation has worsened, with thousands of families crossing the border into Uganda every week. On just one day, December 13, over 7,000 people arrived in the neighboring country, seeking refuge.
http://reliefweb.int/report/south-sudan/spiraling-toward-catastrophe-south-sudan
Regardless: Happy New Year to all
Not the Expendables
Image: Channel 4
Fifty miles east of the Khabur river and fifty miles west of the Tigris, the city of Sinjar has been taken once again by a swift desert army determined to expel all traces of foreign influence:
The five provinces beyond the Tigris, which had been ceded by the grandfather of Sapor, were restored to the Persian monarchy. He acquired, by a single article, the impregnable city of Nisibis, which had sustained, in three successive sieges, the effort of his arms. Singara and the castle of the Moors, one of the strongest places of Mesopotamia, were likewise dismembered from the empire. It was considered as an indulgence that the inhabitants of those fortresses were permitted to retire with their effects; but the conqueror rigorously insisted that the Romans should for ever abandon the king and kingdom of Armenia. A peace, or rather a long truce, of thirty years, was stipulated between the hostile nations; the faith of the treaty was ratified by solemn oaths and religious ceremonies; and hostages of distinguished rank were reciprocally delivered to secure the performance of the condition.
[Gibbon, Chapter 24]
A description of the evacuation of Nisibis—65 miles away—in the face of the approaching invaders suggests what Sinjar’s fleeing residents may have experienced:
Ammianus has delineated in lively colours the scene of universal despair, which he seems to have viewed with an eye of compassion . . . the disconsolate mourner dropped a last tear over the tomb of a son or husband, which must soon be profaned by the rude hand of a barbarian master; and the aged citizen kissed the threshold and clung to the doors of the house where he had passed the cheerful and careless hours of infancy. The highways were crowded with a trembling multitude; the distinctions of rank, and sex, and age, were lost in the general calamity. Every one strove to bear away some fragment from the wreck of his fortunes; and as they could not command the immediate service of an adequate number of horses or wagons, they were obliged to leave behind them the greatest part of their valuable effects . . . Similar orders were despatched by the emperor for the evacuation of Singara and the castle of the Moors, and for the restitution of the five provinces beyond the Tigris. Sapor enjoyed the glory and the fruits of his victory; and this ignominious peace has justly been considered as a memorable era in the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The predecessors of Jovian had sometimes relinquished the dominion of distant and unprofitable provinces; but, since the foundation of the city, the genius of Rome, the god Terminus, who guarded the boundaries of the republic, had never retired before the sword of a victorious enemy.
[Ibid]
The Ark mountain
Image: Google Maps
Throughout history, the conquerors of Sinjar—whoever they are, over and over—often next set their sights on Kurdish lands to the north, of which Nisibis has often been a principal seat. It’s in Turkey, about four-and-a-half hours’ drive northwest of Irbil, the current capital of Iraqi Kurdistan:
Saladin maintained his siege of Sinjār, which was held by Sharaf al-Dīn ibn Quṭb al-Dīn and a garrison, and pressed it vigorously until on 2 Ramaḍān [30 December] he took the place by assault. Sharaf al-Dīn and his men left for Mosul with the full honors of war. The sultan gave the town to his nephew, Taqī al-Dīn, and departed for Nisibis.
[Ibn Shaddad, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin]
On [Aug 3], Yezidi residents of Sinjar in Iraq fled to the mountains north of the city—in the year 6764, by their calendar. A reported 40,000 became stranded on Mount Sinjar, besieged by ISIS fighters invading the region. As of August 15, many of these have escaped overland to Kurdistan and Syria, assisted by Kurdish militia, airdrops of supplies by the Iraqi military and former colonial powers, and American airstrikes. It’s said ISIS threatened all Yezidis in Sinjar with death. In 2014 AD, you can excuse some nostalgia for the civilized clemency of Saladin, 832 years earlier, or the diplomatic agreements between Shapur II and the Roman emperor Jovian, another 819 years before that.
The Kurdish north is teeming with refugees two months after much of northern Iraq was emptied by the advance of militants from the Islamic State (Isis) who have shattered centuries of coexistence in the area.
By some estimates, as many as 1.2 million exiles have made the journey to the Kurdish north since then, 200,000 of whom have arrived in the past fortnight alone. Hundreds of thousands of other Iraqis have been displaced from western and central Iraq in a mass movement of people that rivals the worst years of Iraq’s civil war.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/thousands-iraqi-refugees-still-risk-siege-mount-sinjar
Some subjective background:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100282674/death-of-a-religion-isis-and-the-yezidi/
Watch the videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldlN1Zo–6c&index=6&list=UUTrQ7HXWRRxr7OsOtodr2_w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldlN1Zo–6c&index=6&list=UUTrQ7HXWRRxr7OsOtodr2_w
An actual, reportedly beautiful place. Cue Cylon attack
Image: kurdistan-photos.com/lalesh/kurdistan/temple.php
The holiest site of the Yezidi religion is in Lalish, Iraq. The Telegraph article above suggests (without clear citation) a connection between Yezidi origin stories and the archeological dig at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey—a temple complex thought to be 12 millennia old, near the site of the ancient city of Edessa and, of course, only 130 miles west of Nisibis.
To carve, erect and bury rings of seven-ton stone pillars would have required hundreds of workers, all needing to be fed and housed. Hence the eventual emergence of settled communities in the area around 10,000 years ago. “This shows sociocultural changes come first, agriculture comes later,” says Stanford University archaeologist Ian Hodder, who excavated Catalhoyuk, a prehistoric settlement 300 miles from Gobekli Tepe. “You can make a good case this area is the real origin of complex Neolithic societies.”
The world’s oldest temple. Thirty miles from Kobani, if anybody cares
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/?no-ist
- And now we lie in it
Image: Getty Images / bbc.com
The twin capitals of the Developed World derive their status not from legal sovereignty but from their universally acknowledged concentrations of high-level commerce, cultural production, and sheer networking capacity. In both cities (and other aspiring metropolises), the arts are diligently studied, recombined, and revered by elite interests, who in turn inspire public acclaim and the generous remuneration of creative pursuits:
The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools; and their systems, transmitted with blind deference from one generation of disciples to another, precluded every generous attempt to exercise the powers, or enlarge the limits, of the human mind. The beauties of the poets and orators, instead of kindling a fire like their own, inspired only cold and servile imitations: or if any ventured to deviate from those models, they deviated at the same time from good sense and propriety.
[Gibbon, Chapter 2]
Mere imitation or deviation certainly has its rewards, though:
Obscured view
Image: Getty images / bbc.com
The 1998 work features an unmade bed and a floor littered with empty vodka bottles, cigarette butts and condoms.
The work, which was shortlisted for the 1999 Turner Prize, had been put up for sale by millionaire art collector Charles Saatchi who bought it for £150,000 in 2000.
It went under the hammer with a guide price of between £800,000 and £1.2m . . .
Speaking at Christie’s in central London last week ahead of the sale she said she still stood by her work which “changed people’s perceptions of art.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-28116274
The story above is diligently filed by its producer under “Entertainment.”
The most idealistic and ambitious young people flock to the capitals to see for themselves the kaleidoscopic torrent of the Empire’s culture and, if opportunity presents itself, to join its celebration:
Good use of negative space
Image: James Kalm
It was scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should discover in the public felicity the latent causes of decay and corruption . . . The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military spirit evaporated . . . The most aspiring spirits resorted to the court or standard of the emperors; and the deserted provinces, deprived of political strength or union, insensibly sunk into the languid indifference of private life.
[Gibbon, Chapter 2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPQ_gjBRjvw&list=UUMAQTBPIm_0zRgTQVjS2NIA
Hitching yourself to stars is itself an innovative creative act:
Throughout his career, he has . . . transformed the relationship of artists to the cult of celebrity and the global market.
http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/JeffKoons
I am what I say
Image: Thomas Micchelli / Hyperallergic.com
Less celestial voices of dissent are as myriad as they are ignored in the fractured Internet age:
The endgame it presents is that of a once-aspiring culture—the dream of a bold and unruly American art, symbolized by the Whitney’s audacious Marcel Breuer building—collapsing into philistinism and sentimentality, a surrender to the leveling forces of consumerism.
The finest craftsmanship
Image: theartnewspaper.com
In an era of mass consumer culture, even the true innovators are reduced to commenting on the pervasive shallowness of their surroundings:
The spirit of inquiry, prompted by emulation, and supported by freedom, had divided the public teachers of philosophy into a variety of contending sects; but the ingenuous youth who, from every part, resorted to Athens, and the other seats of learning in the Roman empire, were alike instructed in every school to reject and to despise the religion of the multitude. How, indeed, was it possible, that a philosopher should accept, as divine truths, the idle tales of the poets, and the incoherent traditions of antiquity; or, that he should adore, as gods, those imperfect beings whom he must have despised, as men! . . . We may be well assured, that a writer conversant with the world would never have ventured to expose the gods of his country to public ridicule, had they not already been the objects of secret contempt among the polished and enlightened orders of society. Notwithstanding the fashionable irreligion which prevailed in the age of the Antonines, both the interests of the priests and the credulity of the people were sufficiently respected.
[Gibbon, Chapter 2]
You get the idea — it’s a symbol
Image: http://www.aaawt.com
These philosophers seek consolation in elegiac, private withdrawals from the tumult:
The centerpiece of the master bedroom was an elaborately dressed Federal mahogany four-poster bed. The leaf-carved and reeded posts were topped with a mahogany box tester featuring painted stylized bowknots.
“He also had a beautiful mahogany secretarie in his bedroom, which is in the exhibition,” said Smith. “It represents a wonderful use of veneer. It is one of those pieces of furniture you look at, and it is completely right.”
The cylinder-front American secretarie is a rare piece centered by a turned-urn form finial above a marble shelf. Experts attribute it to Baltimore cabinetmaker William Camp, circa 1825.
http://old.post-gazette.com/ae/20020330warhol3.asp
Image: Hiroko Masuike / The New York Times
Within the newer of the twin capitals, even the most insurgent artistic endeavors are assimilated and diluted within a generation or a season:
But the provincials of Rome, trained by a uniform artificial foreign education, were engaged in a very unequal competition with those bold ancients, who, by expressing their genuine feelings in their native tongue, had already occupied every place of honour. The name of Poet was almost forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste.
The artisanal precincts
Image: Thalatta Twice
Even street art has been corrupted [to rephrase Neitzsche, who doesn’t deserve the abuse] by official recognition. Maybe there’s an inverse proportion between creativity and rents? Pro-gentrification media avidly record the expansion of artistic hives:
And an accounting of median rent doesn’t mean you can’t find a solid deal in any of these neighborhoods—I don’t know anyone who pays more than $1K-a-room in Bushwick, and even that seems like a ripoff, considering Jefftown’s pungent collection of empty beer bottles, trash bags and unwrapped mattresses ripening in the summer sun.
http://gothamist.com/2014/06/17/brooklyn_l_train_ugh.php
As you seize your housemate’s security deposit and drop-kick them back to Ohio or Margate, remember—it doesn’t necessarily reflect badly on your character:
But why should the story come to an end? It doesn’t, of course, in the literal sense of stoppage or total ruin. All that is meant by Decadence is “falling off.” It implies in those who live in such a time no loss of energy or talent or moral sense. On the contrary, it is a very active time, full of deep concerns, but peculiarly restless, for it sees no clear lines of advance. The loss it faces is that of Possibility. The forms of art as of life seem exhausted, the stages of development have been run through. Institutions function painfully. Repetition and frustration are the intolerable result. Boredom and fatigue are great historical forces.
It will be asked, how does the historian know when Decadence sets in? By the open confession of malaise, by the search in all directions for a new faith or faiths.
[Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence]
Image: Thalatta Twice
If you object that no solution’s proposed by the comments above, you’re not wrong:
Being intellectually feeble, these complaints cannot lead to action; they merely poison the air and the lives of those that breathe it.
[Barzun, The House of Intellect]
“. . . the black colour of the Abbassides”
Image: theguardian.com
We’ve all heard the electrifying news: A devout Sunni Muslim army based in Syria is seizing large parts of northern Mesopotamia (“the Jazira”) and western Iraq. Their commander and many warriors in this formation are originally from Iraq, but they’ve spent recent years battling apostates in the western Levant, from Damascus to Homs to Aleppo, earning renown as determined, effective fighters. Now they’re returning home in force, claiming the city of Mosul as their prize. Some in the region welcome them as saviors of Islam; others make less sacred bargains with them. Regardless, these confidant jihadis preach the solidarity of all true believers against the foreign infidels who still hover like vultures at the edges of Muslim lands:
Information reached the sultan that envoys of Mosul had come to the Franks urging them to undertake hostilities against the Muslims. Understanding that they had broken their sworn undertakings, he decided to attack them to bring about the unity of the forces of Islam against the enemies of God. . . .
The Sultan came to camp before Aleppo on 18 Jumada I this year [19 September]. He remained for three days and then on 21 Jumada I [22 September] marched away to the Euphrates. He arrived at an understanding with Muzzaffar al-Din, who was lord of Harran and whose relations with Mosul were already strained . . . The Sultan then crossed the Euphrates and took Edessa, Raqqa, Nisibis and Saruj. . . .
. . . On this occasion Saladin besieged [Mosul] on Thursday 11 Rajab 578 {12 November 1182}. At that time I was in Mosul, but a few days before he besieged it I was sent as an envoy to Baghdad. I travelled in haste down the Tigris and within two days and two hours I came to Baghdad to seek their aid. The only thing we got from them was that they sent to the Shaykh al-Shuyukh, who was already with the sultan as an envoy on their behalf, ordering him to speak with him and to settle the matter diplomatically. . . .
For some days the sultan remained before Mosul. He realized that it was a great city against which nothing would be achieved by besieging it in that manner. He saw that the way to take it was to take its fortresses and the surrounding territory and to weaken it by the passage of time. So he moved away and descended on Sinjar on 16 Sha’ban 578 [15 December 1182].
Despite a lack of assistance for the city from its allies in Baghdad and Iran, the zealot army’s repeated efforts to take Mosul stall. The besieging sultan eventually makes a peace deal with his enemies and withdraws:
The treaty came about because the Atabeg ‘Izz al-Din, Lord of Mosul, sent me to the caliph to seek his support, but no “cream” was forthcoming from that direction, so he sent to the Persian princes, but again no benefit resulted. When I arrived back from Baghdad and delivered the reply to the mission, he despaired of any aid. However, hearing of the illness of the sultan, they decided that this was an opportunity, as they had learnt how readily tractable and soft-hearted he was at this time. . . .
Our arrival was early in Dhū’l-Hijja [end of February 1186]. He gave us a respectful welcome and held a reception for us, the first he had held since his illness. He took his oath on the day of Arafat. We received from him the land between the two rivers [Tigris and Euphrates], which he had taken from Sanjar Shāh and now gave to Mosul. I administered a comprehensive oath to him and also got his brother, al-‘Ādil, to swear. The sultan, at his death, still held to that treaty, never having diverged from it. . . .
. . . During those days there was a battle between the Turkomans and the Kurds, a huge number being killed.
[Ibn Shaddad, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, pages 55 & 70 of Nawādir text]
![Ask for directions Image: Ro4444 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://thalattatwice.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/jazira_2.png)
Pull over at this gas station–maybe they’ve got a map
Image: Ro4444 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
It’s been 832 years since the first of three failed attempts on Mosul by Salāh al-Dunyā wa’l-Din, known in the west as Saladin. This June 10, the city fell with startling speed to soldiers of ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, who seek their own fundamentalist nation straddling Syria and northern Iraq. Succeeding militarily in a place Saladin could not, the fundamentalist victors nevertheless won’t exceed anytime soon the personal regard he enjoys both in the West and the Muslim world. Out of sentimental respect (which itself bears examination), one hesitates to make comparisons, but some of the details coincide at narrow points.
First, despite spending most of his military career in Syria and Egypt, Saladin was himself a native of Tikrit, in Iraq–a distinction he shares with Saddam Hussein, who wasn’t shy about reminding people of it. The sultan’s invasion of Mesopotamia in 1182 was thus a sort of homecoming. As of June 11, Tikrit too is under ISIS control, occupied by a militant group first founded in Iraq but which acquired its current strength (and wealth) in Syria’s civil war.
Next, Saladin, the implacable foe of the crusaders, assiduously invoked the common goal of driving Christian armies from the Holy Land to justify his conquests of rival Muslims powers—political consolidation for the sake of Jihad against the infidels. Intra-faith sectarianism—that is, divides between Sunni, Shia, Ismaili, and so on—don’t seem to have motivated the sultan, although he can take much credit for ending the Shia Fatimid caliphate’s rule of Egypt in the 1160s A.D.
In the judgment of his character, the reproaches of treason and ingratitude strike forcibly on our minds, impressed, as they are, with the principle and experience of law and loyalty. But his ambition may in some measure be excused by the revolutions of Asia, which had erased every notion of legitimate succession.
[Gibbon, Chapter 59]
ISIS has advertised its own enmity toward the West through videos depicting its vicious treatment of Iraqis believed to have collaborated with the Americans. Quite unlike Saladin, though, its energies seem only tangentially directed against Western forces. The sultan battled the Franks in Outremer from the start, and his wars with the Muslim Fatimids and Zengids can be counted as steps toward his goal of reversing the Crusades. Mass executions of Saladin’s enemies were solemnly reserved for the most irredeemable of his opponents, such as the Templars and Hospitallers at the Battle of Hattin, and only after the offer of conversion to Islam was refused.
. . . The victory was stained by the execution of two hundred and thirty knights of the hospital, the intrepid champions and martyrs of their faith.
[Ibid]
The outrageous (and gleefully broadcast) massacres committed by ISIS are directed at Arab conscripts, and these killings are intended to prolong rather than terminate the fears of people in Iraq. More broadly speaking, ISIS seems more interested in acquiring its own territory than in liberating any prior nation from tyrants of any extraction.
Third, and most relevantly, Saladin pursued and abandoned a dizzying array of alliances at his own convenience, much as ISIS (and greater powers) do today, and at a rate that would make even the most cynical poli-sci majors blush. He seems to have done so with great courtliness, perhaps from decent tradition, or to mitigate the taint of crassness involved. ISIS claims that much of its recent success in Iraq is due to the presence of sympathizers and sleeper cells in every northern and central city; additionally, they work closely with Baathists and former rivals among Sunni jihadist groups. Middle East analyst Elijah J. Magnier has interviewed an Iraqi ISIS fighter, who describes the complex arrangements among his co-jihadis and other Sunni factions in Iraq. It’s propaganda (in near-fluent English), but it’s also bracingly candid about the presumption of shifting alliances among the involved parties:
A Naqshabandi can be sneaky but they can’t do as they are pleased in Iraq. For example, ISIS has absorbed IAI slowly. Some days back, in Diyala, IAI gave allegiance to ISIS making us as the largest group. As far as it concerns Izzat Duri, he can’t do anything about ISIS expansion. Any wrong move and it will turn ugly. So far, none of these they groups attacked ISIS or backstabbed it. Moreover, It is important to keep in mind that Mosul is the Iraqi Baath party birthplace. Nobody can deny that many groups are involved and fight alongside ISIS but its ISIS that calls the shots. For example it’s ISIS banners (Banner of Monotheism) that is flying high, same thing in Baiji, Tikrit and other towns. But yes, ISIS is not fighting alone as the government claims. . . .
I agree that the situation is a bit chaotic where Sunni against Shia and Kurds against Sunni and Shia against Kurds for their expansion will and vice versa.
No kidding.
It’s stipulated in the rider
Image: http://archive.worldhistoria.com/
Saladin’s popularity outside Muslim countries is longstanding; he’s often reputed to have embodied a chivalric knight more consistently than his Christian adversaries. There’s probably a self-serving element to this—a desire to see oneself in the reflection of a virtuous antagonist, to expiate what Gibbon calls “the shame and reproach that always adhere to unsuccessful injustice.”
In a fanatic age, himself a fanatic, the genuine virtues of Saladin commanded the esteem of the Christians; the emperor of Germany gloried in his friendship; the Greek emperor solicited his alliance; and the conquest of Jerusalem diffused, and perhaps magnified, his fame both in the East and West. . . .
The noblest monument of a conqueror’s fame, and of the terror which he inspired, is the Saladine tenth, a general tax which was imposed on the laity, and even the clergy, of the Latin church, for the service of the holy war. The practice was too lucrative to expire with the occasion: and this tribute became the foundation of all the tithes and tenths on ecclesiastical benefices, which have been granted by the Roman pontiffs to Catholic sovereigns, or reserved for the immediate use of the apostolic see. This pecuniary emolument must have tended to increase the interest of the popes in the recovery of Palestine: after the death of Saladin, they preached the crusade, by their epistles, their legates, and their missionaries.
[Gibbon, Chapter 59]
All due respect to YouTube user Yahya76, who’s uploaded all of Youssef Cahine’s Saladin (1963). I won’t pretend I’ve seen it, but I’ve always meant to do so. If someone gets through all of it, let me know.
Also, in case the kids haven’t done this yet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boXtqvcrpKM
Finally, it’s okay if some earnest young thinker out there thinks yours truly is ignorant of the notorious 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement. On a smaller scale, Saladin first made, and then dispensed with, a vaguely similar arrangement with his neighbors before his invasion of the Jazira and Iraq. For that we back up a year or two before his first siege of Mosul:
He then learnt of the disorder in Syria and determined to return there, which return was for warfare against the Franks. Envoys of Qilij came to him, requesting a treaty with the sultan and asking him for aid against the Armenians. . . .
Then Qilij Arslān made overtures concerning a general peace treaty for all the eastern princes. Peace was concluded and the sultan took an oath on 10 Jumādā I 576 [1 October 1180]. The peace treaty covered Qilij Arslān and the rulers of Mosul and Diyār Bakr. It was concluded on the river Sanja, which is a tributary of the Euphrates. The sultan then set out to return to Damascus.
[Ibn Shaddad, page 53 Nawādir text]
Sources:
Ibn Shaddad, Baha al-Din Yusuf ibn Rafi, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin; translated by D.S. Richards; Ashgate Publishing Limited, Hampshire, UK, 2002
Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. VI, “World’s Classics” edition, Oxford University Press, London, New York, and Toronto, 1906
Sailing to Byzantium
(Image: China Daily)
Kiev has long oscillated near the gravitational center of the Russian world, always in tension with cousinly northern neighbors as well as outside powers. A strong Kievan leader has recently sought closer ties with sophisticated foreign empires, who offer expanded trade, military alliances, and a new universal creed for her people. She’s struggled in earnest to consolidate her nation, even when her political allies have fallen. Still, her fervent vision is not fully shared by all her countrymen:
…The seed of the gospel was sown on a barren soil: many were the apostates, the converts were few; and the baptism of Olga may be fixed as the aera of Russian Christianity. A female, perhaps of the basest origin, who could revenge the death, and assume the sceptre, of her husband Igor, must have been endowed with those active virtues which command the fear and obedience of Barbarians. In a moment of foreign and domestic peace, she sailed from Kiow to Constantinople; and the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus has described, with minute diligence, the ceremonial of her reception in his capital and palace. The steps, the titles, the salutations, the banquet, the presents, were exquisitely adjusted to gratify the vanity of the stranger, with due reverence to the superior majesty of the purple. . . . After her return to Kiow and Novogorod, she firmly persisted in her new religion; but her labours in the propagation of the gospel were not crowned with success; and both her family and nation adhered with obstinacy or indifference to the gods of their fathers. Her son Swatoslaus was apprehensive of the scorn and ridicule of his companions; and her grandson Wolodomir devoted his youthful zeal to multiply and decorate the monuments of ancient worship. The savage deities of the North were still propitiated with human sacrifices: in the choice of the victim, a citizen was preferred to a stranger, a Christian to an idolater; and the father, who defended his son from the sacerdotal knife, was involved in the same doom by the rage of a fanatic tumult.
[Gibbon, Chapter 55]
Igor was Prince of Kievan Rus’, then a pagan nation, from 912 A.D. until his violent demise in 945. (That year, he attempted to collect protection money from Drevlian tribes north of the Black Sea; they tied each of his legs to separate bent-back birch trees and then released them, to sanguinary effect.) Olga, his widow, served as regent for their son Sviatoslav for the next 17 years, annihilating his father’s killers in the interim. She converted to Christianity in 955 and visited Constantinople, the eastern center of the faith, shortly after. There the Byzantine emperor acknowledged her rule over the area that now includes much of Ukraine, laying the groundwork for the bond between eastern Christianity and the Rus—essentially, Russian—people. Once in power, however, the energetic Prince Sviatoslav retained his pagan faith, and initially his own heir Vladimir also denied the Cross:
Yet the lessons and example of the pious Olga had made a deep, though secret, impression in the minds of the prince and people: the Greek missionaries continued to preach, to dispute, and to baptize: and the ambassadors or merchants of Russia compared the idolatry of the woods with the elegant superstition of Constantinople. They had gazed with admiration on the dome of St. Sophia: the lively pictures of saints and martyrs, the riches of the altar, the number and vestments of the priests, the pomp and order of the ceremonies; they were edified by the alternate succession of devout silence and harmonious song; nor was it difficult to persuade them, that a choir of angels descended each day from heaven to join in the devotion of the Christians. But the conversion of Wolodomir was determined, or hastened, by his desire of a Roman bride. At the same time, and in the city of Cherson, the rites of baptism and marriage were celebrated by the Christian pontiff: the city he restored to the emperor Basil, the brother of his spouse. . . . The edict of Wolodomir had proclaimed, that all who should refuse the rites of baptism would be treated as the enemies of God and their prince; and the rivers were instantly filled with many thousands of obedient Russians, who acquiesced in the truth and excellence of a doctrine which had been embraced by the great duke and his boyars.
[Gibbon, Chapter 55]
Vladimir—today known as “the Great”—made the momentous decision to unite Russia with Byzantine Christianity (now we call it Orthodox) in 988 A.D., although not necessarily from pious motives. The consequences of this choice are obvious today, but, as Gibbon suggests, Vladimir’s conversion to a way of life originating outside Russian lands might not have occurred without the resolute prior example of Saint Olga.
If you knew the stories, you’d be scared
1,016 years later—a decade ago—another daughter of Ukraine urged the Kiev regime to lean toward the foreign, totalizing gospel of Westernization and globalization. During the Orange Revolution of 2004, Yulia Tymoshenko was a chief of the political opposition to the Moscow-friendly, northern-leaning government. Since then, she’s been prime minister twice and served a prison stint (on disputed corruption charges) that ended prematurely in February following the Euromaiden protests and 2014 revolution. Along the way she’s advocated policies for Ukraine that make her the virtual anti-Putin of the post-Soviet world, including joining the EU and NATO and discouraging Russian as an official language. As of two weeks ago, she’s lost a second campaign for the presidency. Some of her resonance with Olga of Old Kiev derives from her reputation as the savior or “Joan of Arc” of Ukraine:
Sadly for Ukraine’s new rulers, they don’t yet have an equivalent to Vladimir the Great to implement Tymoshenko’s advocacy of stronger ties to the West. Instead, nearly half the country seems to be transferring their allegiance northward to the Vladimir (the Relentless?) who occupies the Kremlin. Your humble servant is damned if it’s clear where the conflict in Ukraine is headed, and so is anybody else who claims to have it figured out. The new president, Petro Poroshenko, has taken a temperate tone with Moscow but still declares that Crimea should be restored to Ukraine. Going out on a limb, that’ll never happen. Meanwhile, desultory combat continues between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian government in the country’s east. Bonus points if you can (easily) spot how one article below rips whole paragraphs from Reuters without attribution!:
Academy Award pending
Amid all this bloodshed among the birches—no laughing matter—it’s uplifting to look back on one of the immediate and picaresque effects of medieval Russia’s conversion to Christianity: the establishment of the Byzantine Emperors’ legendary Varangian Guards. The origins of the itinerant Varangian warriors, and their relation to the original Rus people, are a matter of understandable dispute among Russian historians. “Viking” and “Varangian” appear to be synonymous terms, and the latter were certainly of Scandinavian origin. Prince Igor’s Varangian father Rurik established the dynasty that bears his name at Novgorod in 862 A.D., before his successors moved on to Kiev, and his blood still flowed in the veins of Russian Tsars as late as the 18th century. The old-fashioned Western view that the Rus people were themselves migrant Varangians is discounted in modern times; it seems more likely the “Rus” were an Eastern Slavic group who partnered with Rurik’s Vikings to form the Kievan Rus’ state. Gibbon, writing in the 1780s, again shows an uncanny anticipation of such modern controversies:
This Scandinavian origin of the people, or at least the princes, of Russia, may be confirmed and illustrated by the national annals and the general history of the North. The Normans, who had so long been concealed by a veil of impenetrable darkness, suddenly burst forth in the spirit of naval and military enterprise. The vast, and, as it is said, the populous regions of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, were crowded with independent chieftains and desperate adventurers, who sighed in the laziness of peace, and smiled in the agonies of death. Piracy was the exercise, the trade, the glory, and the virtue, of the Scandinavian youth. Impatient of a bleak climate and narrow limits, they started from the banquet, grasped their arms, sounded their horn, ascended their vessels, and explored every coast that promised either spoil or settlement. The Baltic was the first scene of their naval achievements they visited the eastern shores, the silent residence of Fennic and Sclavonic tribes, and the primitive Russians of the Lake Ladoga paid a tribute, the skins of white squirrels, to these strangers, whom they saluted with the title of Varangians or Corsairs. Their superiority in arms, discipline, and renown, commanded the fear and reverence of the natives. In their wars against the more inland savages, the Varangians condescended to serve as friends and auxiliaries, and gradually, by choice or conquest, obtained the dominion of a people whom they were qualified to protect. Their tyranny was expelled, their valour was again recalled, till at length Ruric, a Scandinavian chief, became the father of a dynasty which reigned above seven hundred years. His brothers extended his influence: the example of service and usurpation was imitated by his companions in the southern provinces of Russia; and their establishments, by the usual methods of war and assassination, were cemented into the fabric of a powerful monarchy.
[Gibbon, Chapter 55]
It appears the Varangians continued to be a core group of incorrigible warriors within the Kievan, mostly Slavic nation, and that upon his Christian conversion Vladimir—the great-grandson of Rurik—sought to fob them off on Constantinople:
As long as the descendants of Ruric were considered as aliens and conquerors, they ruled by the sword of the Varangians, distributed estates and subjects to their faithful captains, and supplied their numbers with fresh streams of adventurers from the Baltic coast. But when the Scandinavian chiefs had struck a deep and permanent root into the soil, they mingled with the Russians in blood, religion, and language, and the first Waladimir had the merit of delivering his country from these foreign mercenaries. They had seated him on the throne; his riches were insufficient to satisfy their demands; but they listened to his pleasing advice, that they should seek, not a more grateful, but a more wealthy, master; that they should embark for Greece, where, instead of the skins of squirrels, silk and gold would be the recompense of their service. At the same time, the Russian prince admonished his Byzantine ally to disperse and employ, to recompense and restrain, these impetuous children of the North. Contemporary writers have recorded the introduction, name, and character, of the Varangians: each day they rose in confidence and esteem; the whole body was assembled at Constantinople to perform the duty of guards; and their strength was recruited by a numerous band of their countrymen from the Island of Thule. On this occasion, the vague appellation of Thule is applied to England; and the new Varangians were a colony of English and Danes who fled from the yoke of the Norman conqueror. The habits of pilgrimage and piracy had approximated the countries of the earth; these exiles were entertained in the Byzantine court; and they preserved, till the last age of the empire, the inheritance of spotless loyalty, and the use of the Danish or English tongue. With their broad and double-edged battle-axes on their shoulders, they attended the Greek emperor to the temple, the senate, and the hippodrome; he slept and feasted under their trusty guard; and the keys of the palace, the treasury, and the capital, were held by the firm and faithful hands of the Varangians.
[Gibbon, Chapter 55]
It’s thought that the first detachment of Varangians sent to serve the Byzantine emperor numbered about 6,000; over the next few centuries, the gentleman under their banner had all sorts of adventures at Constantinople’s behest. Note how, in the passage above, English-speaking guys far from home somehow seem to find their way into the picture, as if auditioning for a corny Hollywood sword-and-sandals movie:
Additional sources:
Riasanovsky, Nicholas V., A History of Russia, 6th ed., Oxford University Press, New York, 2000
Harl, Kenneth W., The Vikings [videorecording], The Teaching Company LLC, 2005
Another Year
Heed Unto the Glaive
For years the Roman papacy has been undermined by internal discord and corruption, difficulties that have recently spilled into the open. The current pontiff represents a departure from his predecessors, whose disappointed sympathizers are his most significant antagonists:
Their acquiescence or repentance disguised, above four years, the blackest intention of revenge, till the day of a procession, when a furious band of conspirators dispersed the unarmed multitude, and assaulted with blows and wounds the sacred person of the pope. But their enterprise on his life or liberty was disappointed, perhaps by their own confusion and remorse. Leo was left for dead on the ground: on his revival from the swoon, the effect of his loss of blood, he recovered his speech and sight; and this natural event was improved to the miraculous restoration of his eyes and tongue, of which he had been deprived, twice deprived, by the knife of the assassins.
This pope, however, has the imagination and enterprise—if not desperation—to cultivate supporters from outside the traditional sphere of the Holy See, and with their backing he consolidates his position at Rome:
Leo repassed the Alps with a commission of counts and bishops, the guards of his safety and the judges of his innocence. . . . [He] was permitted to purge himself by oath of the crimes imputed to his charge: his enemies were silenced, and the sacrilegious attempt against his life was punished by the mild and insufficient penalty of exile.
In full view of the civilized world, the pontiff gives his seal of approval to one of the great western powers, according them a legitimacy beyond any dared by any previous Bishop of Rome:
On the festival of Christmas, the last year of the eighth century, Charlemagne appeared in the church of St. Peter; and, to gratify the vanity of Rome, he had exchanged the simple dress of his country for the habit of a patrician. After the celebration of the holy mysteries, Leo suddenly placed a precious crown on his head, and the dome resounded with the acclamations of the people,
“Long life and victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by God the great and pacific emperor of the Romans!”
The head and body of Charlemagne were consecrated by the royal unction: after the example of the Caesars, he was saluted or adored by the pontiff: his coronation oath represents a promise to maintain the faith and privileges of the church; and the first-fruits were paid in his rich offerings to the shrine of his apostle. In his familiar conversation, the emperor protested the ignorance of the intentions of Leo, which he would have disappointed by his absence on that memorable day. But the preparations of the ceremony must have disclosed the secret; and the journey of Charlemagne reveals his knowledge and expectation: he had acknowledged that the Imperial title was the object of his ambition, and a Roman synod had pronounced, that it was the only adequate reward of his merit and services.
I’ll Take the Dowry in Trade
[Gibbon, Chapter 49]
A mere 1,213 years later, Pope Francis has deviated somewhat from the entrenched posture we associate with other recent holders of his office. In his Urbi et Orbi speech eleven days ago, while calling for a cessation of hostilities around the globe, he solicited the aid of some unusual confederates:
He said that people of other religions were also praying for peace, and – departing from his prepared text – he urged atheists to join forces with believers.
“I invite even non-believers to desire peace. (Join us) with your desire, a desire that widens the heart. Let us all unite, either with prayer or with desire, but everyone, for peace,” he said, drawing sustained applause from the crowd.
Francis’s reaching out to atheists and people of other religions is a marked contrast to the attitude of former Pope Benedict, who sometimes left non-Catholics feeling that he saw them as second-class believers.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/12/25/uk-pope-christmas-idUKBRE9BN0MD20131225
In the grievous roster—however brief so far—of dubious historical analogies found on this Web site, today’s is perhaps the most joyously specious. Blessings of the Season! Where is the possible point of comparison? Both Leo III and Francis have made calls for unity and peace on a Christmas Day, but there’s nothing remarkable there: For a very long time, popes have given Urbi et Orbi addresses on Christmas and Easter (and on other occasions), often including a traditional call for peace–an end to violence and war.
By crowning Charlemagne as the first western “Emperor” in over 300 years, Leo sought to solidify the position of Rome and its bishop in the Christian world, as well as to acquire permanent personal protection. This selection of Charles, essentially a barbarian monarch, amounted to a rejection of the eastern Byzantine emperors’ traditional claim as protectors of the western church, a step with far-reaching consequences. Francis’s recent speech is rather less momentous for international diplomatic relations, but, like Leo, he’s taken the initiative to cultivate allies outside the official papal jurisdiction. Many of his surest backers in today’s mass-culture climate are found outside the church and even religion itself. The relative liberality or conservatism of Francis’s papacy is beyond the scope of this venue. The subject has been prematurely and unsuccessfully examined by some of North America’s most celebrated theological scholars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqetRt1i9-Y
Also, there’s this. (Fast-forward to 00:01:12.) It doesn’t always hurt to cast a wide net:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SVD2HGsO9I
Meanwhile, Leo’s friend Charles was a descendant of the so-called Mayors of the Palace—the “Greats,” or head officials, who served the Merovingian rulers of the Franks in what’s now modern-day France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and western Germany. In his lifetime Charles himself became King of Francia, King of Italy, and Holy Roman Emperor, the last by courtesy of Leo. Reports vary, but Charles was certainly tall for his time, at least 6’0”. His father, Pepin the Short, may have been 6’7”. For the sake of amusement, although beside the point, it’s worthwhile to pass on some of Gibbon’s observations about Charlemagne:
Without injustice to his fame, I may discern some blemishes in the sanctity and greatness of the restorer of the Western empire. Of his moral virtues, chastity is not the most conspicuous: but the public happiness could not be materially injured by his nine wives or concubines, the various indulgence of meaner or more transient amours, the multitude of his bastards whom he bestowed on the church, and the long celibacy and licentious manners of his daughters . . . The sedentary reader is amazed by his incessant activity of mind and body; and his subjects and enemies were not less astonished at his sudden presence, at the moment when they believed him at the most distant extremity of the empire; neither peace nor war, nor summer nor winter, were a season of repose; and our fancy cannot easily reconcile the annals of his reign with the geography of his expeditions. But this activity was a national, rather than a personal, virtue; the vagrant life of a Frank was spent in the chase, in pilgrimage, in military adventures; and the journeys of Charlemagne were distinguished only by a more numerous train and a more important purpose.
[Gibbon, Chapter 49, again]
http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/volume2/chap49.htm#Separation
Also, of course:
This is our year!
Organized, serial athletic contests can be a release valve for social tensions or, at rare and unfortunate moments, catalysts for upheaval. Today, your preferences among sports teams are probably a matter of local or practical affinity, and their endeavors are a benign seasonal tradition:
The games were exhibited at the expense of the republic, the magistrates, or the emperors; but the reins were abandoned to servile hands; and if the profits of a favorite charioteer sometimes exceeded those of an advocate, they must be considered as the effects of a popular extravagance, and the high wages of a disgraceful profession. The race . . . was a simple contest of two chariots, whose drivers were distinguished by red and white liveries: two additional colours, a light green and a cærulean blue, were afterwards introduced. . . . The four factions soon acquired a legal establishment and a mysterious origin, and their fanciful colours were derived from the various appearances of nature in the four seasons of the year. . . . Another interpretation preferred the elements to the seasons, and the struggle of the green and blue was supposed to represent the conflict of the earth and sea. Their respective victories announced either a plentiful harvest or a prosperous navigation, and the hostility of the husbandmen and mariners was somewhat less absurd than the blind ardor of the Roman people, who devoted their lives and fortunes to the color which they had espoused.
Imagine, though, if the richest, strongest teams were jammed together in the nation’s capital, and if they became associated with political causes and factions:
. . . Constantinople adopted the follies, though not the virtues, of ancient Rome; and the same factions which had agitated the circus, raged with redoubled fury in the hippodrome. Under the reign of Anastasius, this popular frenzy was inflamed by religious zeal; and the greens, who had treacherously concealed stones and daggers under baskets of fruit, massacred, at a solemn festival, three thousand of their blue adversaries. The popular dissensions, founded on the most serious interest, or holy pretence, have scarcely equalled the obstinacy of this wanton discord, which invaded the peace of families, divided friends and brothers, and tempted the female sex, though seldom seen in the circus, to espouse the inclinations of their lovers, or to contradict the wishes of their husbands. Every law, either human or divine, was trampled under foot, and as long as the party was successful, its deluded followers appeared careless of private distress or public calamity.
Our own time is occasionally punctuated by the outbursts of indolent superfans, although their entertainment is mainly provided by private enterprise, not public institutions–an arrangement that probably restrains their crude passions. An example of lawless Green-on-Blue violence was seen in the arid precincts of Foxborough only last weekend:
God willing, the outcome of this year’s struggle between the patriots of the Blue and the Green-clad nation will resemble the sporting scene in 6th-century Constantinople only insofar as the ancient Blue faction eventually gained the upper hand. In other respects, things got a bit out of hand in 532 A.D.:
Insolent with royal favor, the blues affected to strike terror by a peculiar and Barbaric dress, the long hair of the Huns, their close sleeves and ample garments, a lofty step, and a sonorous voice. In the day they concealed their two-edged poniards, but in the night they boldly assembled in arms, and in numerous bands, prepared for every act of violence and rapine. Their adversaries of the green faction, or even inoffensive citizens, were stripped and often murdered by these nocturnal robbers, and it became dangerous to wear any gold buttons or girdles, or to appear at a late hour in the streets of a peaceful capital. A daring spirit, rising with impunity, proceeded to violate the safeguard of private houses; and fire was employed to facilitate the attack, or to conceal the crimes of these factious rioters. No place was safe or sacred from their depredations; to gratify either avarice or revenge, they profusely spilt the blood of the innocent; churches and altars were polluted by atrocious murders; and it was the boast of the assassins, that their dexterity could always inflict a mortal wound with a single stroke of their dagger. The dissolute youth of Constantinople adopted the blue livery of disorder; the laws were silent, and the bonds of society were relaxed: creditors were compelled to resign their obligations; judges to reverse their sentence; masters to enfranchise their slaves; fathers to supply the extravagance of their children; noble matrons were prostituted to the lust of their servants; beautiful boys were torn from the arms of their parents; and wives, unless they preferred a voluntary death, were ravished in the presence of their husbands.
The situation became a threat to the emperor Justinian himself, especially once the rival fans forgot their dispute and turned together against the corrupt government:
A sedition, which almost laid Constantinople in ashes, was excited by the mutual hatred and momentary reconciliation of the two factions. . . . the two factions were equally provoked by the cruelty of their oppressor, or the ingratitude of their patron; and a short truce was concluded till they had delivered their prisoners and satisfied their revenge. The palace of the praefect, who withstood the seditious torrent, was instantly burnt, his officers and guards were massacred, the prisons were forced open, and freedom was restored to those who could only use it for the public destruction. A military force, which had been despatched to the aid of the civil magistrate, was fiercely encountered by an armed multitude, whose numbers and boldness continually increased; and the Heruli, the wildest Barbarians in the service of the empire, overturned the priests and their relics, which, from a pious motive, had been rashly interposed to separate the bloody conflict. The tumult was exasperated by this sacrilege, the people fought with enthusiasm in the cause of God; the women, from the roofs and windows, showered stones on the heads of the soldiers, who darted fire brands against the houses; and the various flames, which had been kindled by the hands of citizens and strangers, spread without control over the face of the city. The conflagration involved the cathedral of St. Sophia, the baths of Zeuxippus, a part of the palace, from the first entrance to the altar of Mars, and the long portico from the palace to the forum of Constantine: a large hospital, with the sick patients, was consumed; many churches and stately edifices were destroyed and an immense treasure of gold and silver was either melted or lost. From such scenes of horror and distress, the wise and wealthy citizens escaped over the Bosphorus to the Asiatic side; and during five days Constantinople was abandoned to the factions, whose watchword, NIKA, vanquish! has given a name to this memorable sedition.
[Gibbon, Chapter 40]
The Hippodrome
Justinian’s reign almost collapsed under the pressure of the Nika riots. He nearly fled the city, but his courage was renewed first by the admonishment and then the encouragement of his wife, Theodora, whose own career makes Eva Peron look like Doris Day. That’s a story for another day…
Thalatta Twice 