The Retrenchment of One Roman Empire, the Resurgence of Another

Abstract

Abstract By the middle of the ninth century, the Eastern Empire in Constantinople had begun a long recovery under the Macedonian dynasty. Although the rhetoric of decline and renewal was used to explain the necessity of the coup that brought Basil I, the first member of the dynasty, to power, the stability of the dynasty meant that emperors like Leo VI and authors writing about later Macedonian emperors like Constantine VII also often evoked the Antonine idea of renewal without decline. The tendency for tenth-century Macedonian rulers to rule alongside co-emperors meant that this rhetoric could blame the co-emperor for problems while affirming the basic continuity of the dynasty. After discussing the Macedonian dynasty, which ended in the 1050s, the chapter concludes by looking at the return of the rhetoric of decline in authors like Michael Psellus and Michael Attaleiates who worked in the troubled 1070s.