“Los eslavos en las fuentes bizantinas de los siglos IX–X: el De administrando imperio de Constantino Porfirogéneto,”, Sode, C. 1994. The DT is a survey of the administrative divisions (“themes” or themata) that had replaced the provinces of the Later Roman Empire. For a specific focus on imperial geography as the principal object of attention (and not as a transferable model), we have to turn to the two treatises in which the emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (913–959) discussed the empire’s provinces and the foreign peoples with whom the empire had to deal. It also reflects the extent to which displacement from Constantinople was a function of imperial power, for the intellectuals who complained about the wretchedness of foreign travel or provincial residence were all officially assigned to their locations—whether as members of diplomatic missions, as civil administrators, as bishops of remote episcopal sees, or simply as political exiles.
The settlement of Romans in Dalmatia by Diocletian because he greatly loved the country. The geography of empire lay behind most of the perceptions of peoples and places expressed in Byzantine non-religious sources.
This allowed for the east to continue to thrive and defend the empire despite the continuing downfall of the west. 1999. This hagio-geography partly replaced, and partly redrew, the map of the pagan cult centers of the ancient Roman world. It has four main phases: The ultimate purpose of the historical narrative is hinted at in those passages where Constantine records the achievement of his own ancestor, Basil I, in regaining imperial control of Dalmatia, and where he asserts, in identical wording, both for the prince of Croatia and the prince of Serbia, that each “has from the beginning, that is, ever since the reign of Heraclius the emperor, been in servitude and submission to the emperor of the Romans, and was never made subject to the prince of Bulgaria” (DAI:150–151, 160–161). Occasionally, Constantine quotes a totally random source.
The most positive and geographically informative piece of travel literature surviving from Byzantium is a late twelfth-century Description of the Holy Places. It reflects, first of all, the enormous attraction of Constantinople as a magnet of ambition, a cultural metropolis, and a center of consumption on a global scale. How did Italy's topography and geographic location affect Rome's development?
20. [20] It should be noted that the latter work has no Greek title apart from the address to the emperor’s son Romanos. Start your 48-hour free trial and unlock all the summaries, Q&A, and analyses you need to get better grades now. With one exception, it contains little geographical description, and refers to no events earlier than the ninth century, with its main focus being on the reigns of Constantine’s immediate predecessors, Leo VI, Alexander, and Romanos I. In particular, we may mention the long-distance aqueduct system of Constantinople, which has recently been investigated in detail; it extended over 200 kilometers, and involved careful mapping of the geology, hydrology, and elevation of the entire region. Monks themselves were often on the move in search of spiritual opportunities. Their strategic location between east and west caused a perpetual split that eventually brought their downfall. One might be tempted to dismiss this as an affected or unthinking anachronism but for the insistence with which he uses the present tense and repeats the words ἔθνη and γένη; as we shall see, the units of “nation” and “people” are basic to Constantine’s geographical thinking in the DAI. Thus in his attempt to relate the theme of Anatolikon with the former Roman province of Asia, he cites two inscriptions commemorating provincial governors: one from the tombstone/sarcophagus in Smyrna of a certain proconsul Publius, and the other from a set of repoussé silver plates in the imperial treasury that had belonged to, or been donated by, one Jordanes “commander of the East and of the other nations in Asia Minor” (DT:61–62). In his Preface (DT:59–60), Constantine emphasizes that the themes were an innovation, which he rightly connects with the great territorial losses that the empire suffered from the reign of Heraclius, but wrongly explains as a result of the emperors no longer leading their troops in battle. Magdalino, P. 1998. Some of them are explicitly concerned with particular regions. The empire continued to struggle with the east-west schism, unable to defend its whole without uniting. Reiske 1829–1830, vol.
This is the only part of Section 3 that fulfills the heading’s promise to provide distances.
Chapters 14–25, covering the Islamic world, are primarily the history of the Arabs, except for Chapters 23–25, where the focus is more on the territory of Spain and on all the peoples who have occupied it since its loss to the empire. [15] There are the massive imperial building projects of the Later Roman Empire, from the foundation of new imperial capitals in the early fourth century to the comprehensive fortification program of Anastasios and Justinian two hundred years later. of De Administrando Imperio by Emperor Constantine VII.
During much of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. Byzantine geographical theory did not rise above the level of commentary on Strabo and Ptolemy, and geographical treatises were almost nonexistent. eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. “The De Administrando Imperio: A Re-examination of the Text and a Re-evaluation of its Evidence about the Rus,” in M. Kazanski, A. Nercessian, C. Zuckermann (eds.). It is tempting to infer that the ancient monuments are mentioned in order to justify an imperial interest in the area. [16] Finally, it should be noted that Procopius’ book on the Buildings of Justinian, though a shameless panegyric with a heavy emphasis on church building, also contains much information on harbors, bridges, and baths, and provides a comprehensive overview of the empire’s defense infrastructure that must have been based on government records.
Yet while the Byzantine elite maintained a long and distinguished tradition of history writing, it produced no geographers and travel writers to compare with those of antecedent and neighboring or comparable cultures. Monasteries drew visitors seeking spiritual benefits and physical therapy. A similar thought is prompted by the close attention to the hagiography of Dalmatia, which also recalls the DT. About. However, we construe politeia—whether as “city” or “state”—it clearly represents a discrete entity within the boundaries of the empire of the themata. Byzantine Lesson (2007). The multiplicity of files and the unprocessed heterogeneity of their contents create not only a moving lens but also an abruptly shifting depth of focus and angle of vision, which together present a highly fragmented tableau of imperial geography: a series of animated vignettes with a bewildering variety of scales and legends, rather than a uniform panorama. Mountains are unavoidably mentioned in connection with Dalmatia and the Slavs of the Peloponnese, but otherwise they figure much less prominently than coasts and rivers. Donate or volunteer today! Characteristic is Constantine’s explanation for the name of the Anatolikon thema.
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