Byzantine Political Research Articles

Retelling the Narratives of the East in the West: The Unique Morisco Account of the Polemic of Wāṣil of Damascus

This article discusses the polemics of Wāṣil of Damascus at the Byzantine court in a hitherto unstudied Aljamiado manuscript copied by Moriscos, or Muslims converted to Christianity in Early Modern Iberia. This debate, which unfolded in the first centuries of the expansion of Islam, has so far been studied on the basis of a single Arabic manuscript. The present contribution adds to the discussion the Aljamiado materials and a number of relevant Arabic sources. It reassesses the character of Wāṣil, his involvement in Byzantine politics and iconoclastic controversies, and his identification with the early theologian Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ (d. 2nd/8th c.). The historical data in Ibn ʿAsākir’s Taʾrīḫ (6th/12th c.) and the role of Wāṣil as the true hero of the story also justify the need for a detailed and extensive analysis of the Muslim readings of the text. The unique Morisco account will be discussed alongside the new evidence, paying attention to the uses of this narrative and its adaptation in the passage from East to West. The practices of retelling tie with the examination of how the original triumphalist story and the key issues of the early Eastern Muslim-Christian debates acquired meaning in the face of the expansion of Iberian Christian society that ended with the expulsion of the Jews and, ultimately, the Moriscos. Taken together, the evidence attests to the preservation of this polemics over the centuries in Muslim circles and its dissemination sometimes in contexts far removed from the original, such as the Muslim West.

Княгиня Ольга и Константинополь: бродячие сюжеты и изменчивые надписи

Introduction. The author proposes a new reconstruction of two episodes concerning Princess Olga in the chronicles and Prolog, which allows to clarify the overall picture of the development of the pre-Mongol legend about the baptism of Olga and her trip to Constantinople. Analysis. In the early chronicles, two layers of narrative about Olga’s trip to Constantinople are clearly distinguishable. The original story contained only the relationship between Olga and Emperor Ioannes Tzimiskes: the author had a good knowledge of the realities of Byzantine politics in the 960s, probably from the Byzantine chronicles. However, the story itself is too fictionalized, and its author, who inscribes Olga’s trip in 946 and her baptism in a completely different chronological frame – the turn of the 960–970s, had to work in the 1060s – early 1070s imitating stories about a wise pagan princess from an older chronicle. Probably, in the “Initial Compilation” this ‘secular’ story was ‘Christianized, but not quite harmoniously. In this form, the story of Olga’s trip and baptism was included in the “Tale of Bygone Years”, but in its recension the “unhistorical” Ioannes Tzimiskes was replaced – probably on the basis of Byzantine chronicles – by the ‘historical’ Constantine VII. However, the chronicles of the late 11th – early 12th century do not know Olga’s cross, which, according to the Prolog, stood in the 1160s in the altar of St. Sofia of Kiev. It was either a “fixation” of the historical memory of the first baptist of Rus’, or a contribution of a 12th century princess with the same name (e.g., of the daughter of Yuri Dolgorukiy and a Byzantine princess). The author of the Prolog combined excerpts from the “Tale of Bygone Years” with the story of Olga’s cross, also “historicizing” the patriarch, who became now Photios, and creating the basis for the entire further hagiographic tradition of the princess.

ШЛЯХИ РЕЦЕПЦІЇ РИМСЬКОГО ПРАВА У ПРАВОВІЙ СИСТЕМІ КИЇВСЬКОЇ РУСІ

The article is devoted to the study of the historical ways of reception of Roman law in Kyivan Rus. The basis of the analysis are historical and scientific sources, among which the main factors that determined the peculiarities of the process of assimilation of the provisions and principles of Roman law into the legal system of the medieval Ukrainian state were identified.First of all, the author focuses attention on the importance of the reception of Roman law for the Romano-Germanic legal family, because the legal system of modern Ukraine obviously embodies the result of the evolution of Roman law in the field of national legal culture. Attention is drawn to the need for a thorough study of the historical dialectical connections of the national legal system with Roman law, as its ideological, doctrinal and historical foundation. The scientific opinion of Ukrainian researchers O.A. found its continuation. Podoprigory and E.O. Kharitonov regarding two ways of reception of Roman law: Western European and Byzantine. The author provides a detailed analysis of each of them and gives specific examples of specific historical documents. At the same time, it comes to the conclusion that a combination of Byzantine and Western European methods of reception of Roman legal provisions took place in Ukraine. It is noted that each of the ways of reception of Roman law prevailed at a certain stage of the development of our country's statehood. Thus, it was concluded that at various stages of historical development, Ukraine assimilated the provisions of Roman law through the mediation of Byzantine (Greco-Roman) law and by borrowing Western European models. For the early medieval period, a characteristic form of reception was the borrowing of Roman legal norms in their Byzantine edition. Which is explained by the significant economic, political, religious and cultural influence of the Byzantine Empire on Kyivan Rus. The author defines the following as the main ways of penetration of Roman norms and principles into the legal system of medieval Russia: diplomatic activity and the signing of interstate treaties, the activity of the church in the translation of acts of canon law, the lawmaking activity of the princely administration, which tried to implement Greco-Roman legal norms into the legislation of Kyivan Rus, adapting them to new realities, as well as the general influence of the Byzantine political and legal culture on the public and political life of the ancient Ukrainian state.

Introduction

Roman Conrad Pucinski was born into the Polish American community in Buffalo, New York, in 1919. Moving to Chicago as a child, he grew up in the Polish Downtown neighborhood before enrolling in Northwestern University in nearby Evanston in 1938. After graduating in 1941 he served in the US Army Air Corps during World War II, during which he was the lead bombardier on the first B-29 mission to Tokyo. Following the war, he attended John Marshall Law School in Chicago from 1945 to 1949 while simultaneously pursuing a journalistic career with the Chicago Times, later to become the Chicago Sun-Times. As a reporter, he covered city hall, which one observer described as “a plum assignment that included covering the city's Byzantine politics and a host of characters, many crooked but nearly all colorful.”1Pucinski's first appearance on the national stage came in 1952 when he took a leave of absence from his position with the newspaper to accept an assignment as chief investigator for a special committee of Congress formed to investigate the mass murder of Polish officers and officials by the Soviets during World War II, a topic of singular interest to him given his Polish ancestry and ties to the ethnic community. Not only did the Katyń investigation vault Pucinski's name into national prominence, it also solidified his position in the Polish ethnic community that would form the basis of his political support in his rise to national influence. The 11th Congressional District in Illinois, from which Pucinski gained election to the House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1959, has been characterized as “the ultimate ethnic American district.” The 1970 census revealed that nearly half of its 454,329 residents had been born outside the United States.2Pucinski's fourteen years in Congress (1959–73) spanned some of the most turbulent and transformative times in postwar America with him taking a leading part in a host of important initiatives. Likewise, after leaving Congress he served for eighteen years (1973–91) as a Chicago alderman at a time when the city was also undergoing significant, economic, ethnic, and political change. Not only did he take a leading part in addressing the resulting issues, he also engaged as a leader in the local and national Polish American community. Seldom has a person been presented with opportunities to make substantial contributions within an ethnic community, on a citywide level, and on the national level and risen to the occasion in each instance.In this special issue of Polish American Studies, we begin with an original primary source prepared for this issue, a memoir of Roman Pucinski's daughter, who shares her recollections of her father, his work in the Polish community, and his feelings and motivations during his career in Congress and as alderman. Since Pucinski's well-developed sense of Polishness (Polskość) was formed early in life, we next move to an article on his mother, Lidia Pucińska, herself a prominent Chicago radio figure and ethnic leader, contributed by historian Joanna Wojdon, who conducted extensive research in the Pucińska Papers in the Polish Museum of America in Chicago.Pucinski's Congressional years marked a turning point in many important domestic concerns in which he was intimately involved. His leadership in these is examined by James S. Pula, while his interactions with the Polish American community, both during his congressional and subsequent years, is the topic of an interview with Richard Owsiany, who worked closely with him in the Polish American Congress and on various community projects. In the closing article, Dominic A. Pacyga delves into the world of Chicago politics to examine Pucinski's role during the critical changes the city underwent while he served as alderman. We hope that this special issue will shed light on an important figure in Polonia who also wielded considerable influence in local and national politics.We wish to thank the editor, Anna Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann, and the members of the editorial board for their support in this project, as well as Richard Owsiany and the Polish Museum of America for permission to use photographs from the museum collections.

LITERARY AND THEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF THE SERMON ON LAW AND GRACE

This article studies the literary and theological background of the Sermon on Law and Grace, a famous oration by Ilarion, the (future) Metropolitan of Kyiv, from the mid-eleventh century. The author of this article focuses also on potential patristic models for Ilarion’s theological and patriotic reflection on the recent East Slavic history in the light of the official adoption of Christianity under Volodymyr Sviatoslavich, Prince of Kyiv. The main feature of the mentioned (self-)reflection, relying on the notion of history as the history of salvation, is disregarding the Byzantine political and cultural superiority and, simultaneously, emphasizing the justice of God, who brings his grace equally to all peoples, thus positioning them on the same spiritual level. This kind of reasoning was not a peculiarity of the Rus’ culture but formed a wider phenomenon defined by apologetic attitu­de and was characteristic of the entire religious-literary tradition of the East Orthodox Slavs between the tenth and sixteenth centuries. While trying to construct a theological justification of the historical value of Kyivan Rus’, Ilarion adapted patristic patterns coming from Byzantium, for example, the explanation of (dis)continuity between the Law of Moses and Christ’s mercy, particularly following Gregory Nazianzen and Patriarch Nicephorus I, or perception of a polity led by a Christian ruler, particularly following Eusebius of Caesarea. 
 Keywords: Sermon on Law and Grace, Ilarion, Rus’ literature, history of salvation, patristic models

Medieval “liberation theology” in the works of Theodore the Studite

The subject of this article is the political-legal ideas of the Byzantine philosopher, public figure and theologian Theodore the Studite. His life and activity were closely related with the policy of Byzantine Iconoclasm conducted in the VIII – IX centuries. The emperors of the Romans, in their struggle against the political and economic power of the Orthodox Church, used discrepancies in interpretation of one of the doctrinal questions of Christianity, which historically manifested as a “stumbling block” among the adherents of this religion. Western province of the Byzantine Empire were against the policy of “iconoclasm” and its monasticism, the prominent representative of this intellectual tradition of which (in the medieval understanding of the latter) was Theodore the Studite. The political-legal ideas of Theodore the Studite, unlike his theological views, are poorly studied in the Russian science. However, they have certain scientific value due to the uniqueness of views of the philosopher comparing to the works of contemporaries and the Byzantine political;-legal literature overall. In his polemical works of theological orientation, Theodore the Studite discusses the problems of the liberty of conscience, individual autonomy, human rights (in their medieval interpretation), boundaries of intrusion of public authorities in social life, etc. The ideas of the Byzantine philosopher represent one of the first attempts of apologetics of “democratic Christianity”.

Византийская политическая и религиозная ортодоксия в цивилизационной теории Исаака Ньютона

Византийская политическая и религиозная ортодоксия в цивилизационной теории Исаака Ньютона

Портреты ктиторов и правителя во фресковых ансамблях времени Душана Сильного

The first half of the 14th century in the history of the Serbian state was marked by the reign of three representatives of the Nemanich dynasty under which the Byzantine political and artistic model was adopted to the Serbian socio-cultural realities. This process, which began under the King Milutin (1282–1321), was accompanied by a transition from the national ideological platform to the imperial one and reached its apogee under the reign of Stephen Dušan the Strong (1331–1355), who annexed a significant part of the Byzantine lands. The idea of the creating a single Greco-Serbian state to replace the Byzantine Empire, in which both Serbian and all the annexed Slavic lands were to become an integral part of the Roman Empire headed by the Serbian ruler, required a new approaches and solutions. In particular, the ways of combining the Byzantine imperial iconography with the Serbian national specifics in the context of the new Serbian-Byzantine relations were found in a new understanding of the aristocracy and sovereign compositions in a number of fresco paintings of the Dušan’s reign. The researchers, quite rightly noting the origins of the ideas of these compositions within the Byzantine art, however, ignored their local specifics, inherited from the earlier Serbian art. The article examines some of the features of the tradition, formed under Dušan, of depicting the ruling sovereign along with the noble-ktitor in a common church space.

Byzantine Political Economy

Knowledge about property rights is a commons that facilitates market exchange and economic coordination. The governance of that shared knowledge resource—the various formal and informal rules that maintain ledgers of property rights—ranges from community norms to formal state registries. In this chapter we make three contributions. First, we use the lens of knowledge commons theory to argue that knowledge about property rights is a shared resource. Second, we explore how that knowledge commons is governed—particularly relating to “rules in use”—might shift due to technological advances in distributed ledgers. Third, we argue that as blockchain augments and complements existing governance structures, it creates a more robust political economy.

Istria in the context of political and religious events in Northern Adriatic from the late fourth until the late sixth century

Owing to its geographical location, Istria was not directly exposed to the devasta- tion in the fourth and fifth centuries, when it avoided both the civil wars and the migratory movements accompanied by invasions of wandering barbarian tribes. After the victory of Christianity, newly created city elites, with the bishop at the helm, had, since the early fifth century, managed the construction activities in cities, primarily relating to monumental projects, which altered the physical appearance of the cityscape. Local peculiarities are often considered as one of the most import- ant factors both for the process of change and for the endurance of the preexist- ing values in political and religious life. Recent studies, however, suggest that the transformation of post-Roman cities was not exclusively a consequence of intense Christianization. The emergence of the new city elite was the result of a conscious effort by the representatives of state authorities. This phenomenon is noticeable as early as the Late Roman Empire and persisted during the times of the barbar- ian states of Odoacer and Theoderic. In Istria it is most evident during Byzantine reign when the intertwining of political and religious spheres is the clearly visible in post-classical urban centres. This phenomenon can be detected thanks to a greater number of written and material sources. The events that took place in the aftermath of the Byzantine-Gothic war and Justinianʼs reconquest of the former Arian regions between 535 and 555 were an intentional reaction of the Byzantine political and religious power centres. Their primary objective was the cleansing of the vestiges of the Arian heresy, followed by the construction of new Christian edifices. The spon- sors of these building projects were Justinian himself, then bishops, state officials and members of the aristocracy. Justinianʼs conquest of the territories of the Ostro- gothic Kingdom between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea – including Istria – caused not only social-political, but also religious-political changes. The transformation of Ravenna into a political power centre during the reign of Theoderic also marks a turning point for the historical development of Istria, although one should consider the situation on the peninsula before the onset of Byzantine rule, as well.

The Byzantine Politics of Byzantine Mysticism

The Byzantine Politics of Byzantine Mysticism

Ancient Greek and Byzantine Political Ethics

The political morality that Plato and Aristotle supported was governed by various anthropological and social determinants, which means that they focused on man understood as a citizen and interpreted through the dialectic as well as through the prospects of the city’s happiness, since for both of them man was a social animal. The political ethics of Plato and Aristotle does not endanger the political community with political bankruptcy. This political morality does not start from intransigent principles to reach a compromise that has already been surpassed by the previous negative dynamics. The Byzantine political morality oscillates between the individual and the totality. It is not governed by individualism but rather by communitarianism, which entails that it confirms the dynamics of unity within the city. The Byzantine political morals is imbued with an anticipation of the political crisis, it seeks to identify any negative developments and strives to avoid the political marginalization of the citizens who are likely to rebel against any autocratic government. The Byzantine political morality is, thus, not an idle and selfish political introversion, concerned merely with political crises, conflict scenarios and conspiracy theories, as it strives to come up with various solutions that should guarantee political balance.

Prefrontal lobotomy on Evita was done for behavior/personality modification, not just for pain control

Eva Perón, best known as Evita, underwent a prefrontal lobotomy in 1952. Although the procedure was said to have been performed to relieve the pain of metastatic cancer, the author carried out a search for evidence that suggests that the procedure was prescribed to decrease violence and to modify Evita's behavior and personality, and not just for pain control. To further elucidate the circumstances surrounding the treatment of this well-known historic figure, the author reviewed the development of the procedure known as prefrontal lobotomy and its three main indications: management of psychiatric illness, control of intractable pain from terminal cancer, and mind control and behavior/personality modification. The role of pioneering neurosurgeons in the development of prefrontal lobotomy, particularly in Connecticut and at Yale University, was also studied, and the political and historical conditions in Argentina in 1952 and to the present were analyzed. Evita was the wife of Juan Perón, who was the supreme leader of the Peronist party as well as president of Argentina. In 1952, however, the Peronist government in Argentina was bicephalic because Evita led the left wing of the party and ran the Female Peronist Party and the Eva Perón Foundation. She was followed by a group of hardcore loyalists interested in accelerating the revolution. Evita was also suffering from metastatic cervical cancer, and her illness increased her anxiety and moved her to purchase weapons to start training workers' militias. Although the apparent purpose was to fight her husband's enemies, this was done without his knowledge. She delivered fiery political speeches and wrote incendiary documents that would have led to a fierce clash in the country at that time. Notwithstanding the disreputable connotation of conspiracy theories, evidence was found of a potentially sinister political conspiracy, led by General Perón, to quiet down his wife Evita and modify her behavior/personality to decrease her belligerence, in addition to treating her cancer-related pain. Psychosurgery was purportedly intended to calm Evita and thus avoid a bloody civil war in Argentina. It was carried out in maximum secrecy and involved a distinguished American neurosurgeon, Dr. James L. Poppen, from the Lahey Clinic in Boston. A recorded and videotaped interview with a former scrub nurse and confidante of Dr. James L. Poppen revealed that prior to the lobotomy on Eva Perón, he performed lobotomies on a few prisoners in the prison system in Buenos Aires. Later, Dr. Poppen seems to have regretted his involvement and participation in this sad chapter in Argentine history. The treatment of Evita at the end of her life was influenced by extraordinary circumstances of time and place but also involved general issues of medical professionalism, the ethics of neuroscience, and the risks of being manipulated by labyrinthine byzantine politics. This story serves as a reminder that any physician, even one considered to be one of the best in the world, may act naively and become a pawn in a game he cannot begin to fathom.

The Byzantine Republic: people and power in New Rome

Although Byzantium is known to history as the Eastern Roman Empire, scholars have long claimed that this Greek Christian theocracy bore little resemblance to Rome. Here, in a revolutionary model of Byzantine politics and society, Anthony Kaldellis reconnects Byzantium to its Roman roots, arguing that from the fifth to the twelfth centuries CE the Eastern Roman Empire was essentially a republic, with power exercised on behalf of the people and sometimes by them too. The Byzantine Republic recovers for the historical record a less autocratic, more populist Byzantium whose Greek-speaking citizens considered themselves as fully Roman as their Latin-speaking ancestors. Kaldellis shows that the idea of Byzantium as a rigid imperial theocracy is a misleading construct of Western historians since the Enlightenment. With court proclamations often draped in Christian rhetoric, the notion of divine kingship emerged as a way to disguise the inherent vulnerability of each regime. The legitimacy of the emperors was not predicated on an absolute right to the throne but on the popularity of individual emperors, whose grip on power was tenuous despite the stability of the imperial institution itself. Kaldellis examines the overlooked Byzantine concept of the polity, along with the complex relationship of emperors to the law and the ways they bolstered their popular acceptance and avoided challenges. The rebellions that periodically rocked the empire were not aberrations, he shows, but an essential part of the functioning of the republican monarchy.

Heroic Offerings: The Terracotta Plaques from the Spartan Sanctuary of Agamemnon and Kassandra by Gina Salapata

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 441 Here we see the full force of Kaldellis’s argument and the productive terrain it opens up. The fragility of the republican foundation of Byzantium prompted the court to invent a “theoretical principal of legitimacy” beyond the republic and outside history (174). Put another way, the instability of the republican model, which offered the possibility of popular sovereignty, was countered by a theocratic model, which offered a rhetorical justification for imperial sovereignty. Byzantium’s complementary republican and theocratic forces worked in tandem: the latter rhetorically ameliorated the reality that was created by the former. The imperial idea thus emerges as a “highly contingent stance that should be bracketed as operating in specific contexts” (170); it is also described as a “mode of rhetorical damage control” (175) and as “a rhetorical space in which all relevant parties could, without loss of face, signal their willingness to support a regime—until they chose not to” (180). This contingent rhetorical space was developed and deployed to control perceptions of the historical events engendered by the republic. Key to Kaldellis’s argument here is the recognition of the possibility of living with inconsistency. The people of Byzantium, he insists, could hold two sets of beliefs: they could believe both that the emperor was invested by God to rule and also that “they themselves had the right to depose him without impiety” (182). In some contexts, such as foreign diplomacy, the imperial idea with all its ceremonial trappings was dominant. In others, as when the people lost confidence in the emperor, that belief was trumped by republican actions. Current scholarship on Byzantine politics has left us with “an overtheorized ideal and an undertheorized reality” (183); Kaldellis calls for scholarly attention to the latter. In this adamantly revisionist enterprise, Kaldellis is quick to use italics, capitalization, and reiteration to underscore his points. Some readers may be put off by its tone; others may object to the contours of his argument and the limited role it accords to religion. Regardless, The Byzantine Republic is an important intervention from a highly prolific scholar. Kaldellis’s deep knowledge of the sources is matched by theoretical sophistication and field-defining ambitions. Establishing the republican nature of Byzantium is a foundational move from which he and others can chart new terrain. McGill University Cecily J. Hilsdale Heroic Offerings: The Terracotta Plaques from the Spartan Sanctuary of Agamemnon and Kassandra. By Gina Salapata. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 2014. Pp. viii, 393, 3 maps, 25 plates, 2 appendices. Supplementary illustrations: http://www.press.umich.edu/3235848/heroic offerings. This book presents an in-depth study of 1273 decorated terracotta plaques (complete and fragmentary) from Lakonia. Datable from the sixth to the fourth century b.c., they were found in a deposit belonging to a sanctuary of the ancient kome of Amyklai, which Gina Salapata convincingly identifies as belonging to Kassandra/Alexandra and Agamemnon. Chapters One and Two provide a background for the analyses and interpretation of the plaques, with the former outlining the discovery of the deposit and the subsequent identification of the sanctuary, and the latter introducing the cult recipients , Kassandra/Alexandra and Agamemnon. Salapata refutes the prevalent theories that assume the original existence of two distinct female figures that somehow became identified with one another, an early Lakonian goddess named Alexandra and the Kassandra of the epic tradition. Instead, she argues that the epic heroine enjoyed this double 442 PHOENIX denomination from the beginning of her worship as a heroine in Amyklai. Alexandra was simply a local name for Kassandra (Paus. 3.19.6). The chapter thoroughly covers the tradition that ties Agamemnon and his grave not to Mycenae, but to Lakonia, and to its possible political contexts, such as a legitimization of Sparta’s ambition to dominate the Peloponnese. The following four chapters focus on the plaques. Chapter Three gives a technical analysis and presents the life cycle of the plaques, from local manufacture to the marketplace and from use to disposal. The section on use holds particular interest; for example, the provision of holes for hanging the plaques seems connected to certain scenes. Plaques with standing figures do not have holes, but...

VI: Byzantine Philosophy. Section 3: A Sourcebook of Byzantine Philosophy

Byzantine philosophy is an unexplored field and one of the more neglected periods in the history of philosophy. Although Byzantine philosophers often have received credit for transmitting ancient philosophical texts, they have not been studied for their own philosophical merit. In order to make easier the study of Byzantine philosophy, to introduce it to a broader academic public and to promote teaching of the subject at the university level, I propose to edit a three-volume sourcebook of Byzantine philosophical texts with English translation and comments, containing the most important texts from the ninth to the fifteenth century, covering the areas of logic, epistemology, natural philosophy, psychology, ethics and politics. Keywords: Byzantine philosophy, Byzantine logic, Byzantine natural philosophy, Byzantine psychology, Byzantine ethics, Byzantine politics, sourcebook

Helena: The Subversive Persona of an Ideal Christian Empress in Early Byzantium

The present paper explores the ways in which the social memory of the mother of Constantine the Great was reconstructed, judged, and appreciated between the late fourth and ninth centuries, in an effort either to qualify or challenge commonly held perceptions of her. My evaluation of the symbolic significance that clergy and laity accorded to Helena broadens our understanding of the official position of empresses in the world of Byzantine politics: both empress and emperor mattered in terms of power, without suggesting that the former was of equal importance to the latter. The portrayals of Helena involve their own paradoxical and subversive qualities.

“Democratic” Action in Eleventh-Century Byzantium: Michael Attaleiates’s “Republicanism” in Context

The History of Michael Attaleiates is one of the most important sources for the study of eleventh-century Byzantium. It is representative of Byzantine efforts to come to terms with the important social and political changes that affected the empire in the course of the eleventh century. In his work Attaleiates often returned to the world of republican Rome in order to seek models of political agency that he then set up against the portraits of his contemporaries. Attaleiates’s fascination with Scipio Africanus, Aemilius Paulus, and Quintus Fabius Cunctator is intriguing to modern readers of the History, but his use of republican language and democratic terminology in two accounts of violent popular political activity is evidence of an effort to explain and potentially legitimize some form of popular participation in the empire’s politics. This article examines the History’s account of two popular rebellions and argues that Attaleiates’s take on the actions of the Byzantine populace is part of a bold reassessment of the place of the empire’s urban strata in the world of Byzantine politics. Attaleiates’s “republicanism” is examined here next to the work of Psellos, Xiphilinos, Zonaras, and Anna Komnene, to reveal the depth of Byzantine engagement with republican political history and ideology.

Entering of Stefan Dusan into the Empire

Entering of Stefan Dusan into the Empire

AN ESTIMATE OF AVERAGE INCOME AND INEQUALITY IN BYZANTIUM AROUND YEAR 1000

Using recent economic statistics from the peak period of Byzantine political and economic influence, we estimate the average income around the year 1000 to have been about 6 nomismata per capita per annum. This is then translated into current prices using two independent methods. They both yield an estimate around $PPP 640–680 in 1990 international prices. It is argued that this amount is some 20 percent below an average estimate of Roman incomes at the time of Augustus (around year one). Assuming that most of income differences in Byzantium were due to the differences in average incomes between social classes, we estimate the Gini coefficient to have been in the range between 40 and 45.