Week 6: (Ch.

11 & 12) Reading Questions and Vocabulary List

Reading Questions:
1) Discuss some of the problems Rome faced during the 3rd century
crisis.
Rome underwent half a century of crisis in the middle of the third century
CE. Beset along its borders and hobbled by constant infighting, the Empire
was at real risk of collapse for decades. It did not collapse, however, and in
fact, enjoyed resurgence of a sort that held the Roman state together until
the end of the fifth century (the western half of the Empire “fell” in 476 CE).
In fact, the period between the end of the five good emperors and the
collapse of Rome was much more complex than one of simple decline and
weakness, and even when the city of Rome could not defend itself, Roman
civilization left an enormous, permanent impression on Western
Civilization. Perhaps most importantly, what began as an obscure cult in
Roman-ruled Judea eventually became one of the great world religions -
Christianity - thanks to its success in spreading throughout the Roman
Empire before the western Empire's collapse.

2) Who was Diocletian? How did he reorganize and change the Roman
Empire? What reforms did he implement?
Diocletian was a Roman emperor from 284 to 305. Born to a family of low
status in Dalmatia, Diocletian rose through the ranks of the military to
become a cavalry commander of Emperor Carus's army. After the deaths
of Carus and his son Numerian on campaign in Persia, Diocletian was
proclaimed emperor. The title was also claimed by Carus's surviving son,
Carinus, but Diocletian defeated him in the Battle of the Margus.
This period of crisis ended with the ascension of the emperor Diocletian in
284 CE. He not only managed to survive for twenty years after taking the
throne, but he also reorganized the Empire and pulled it back from the
brink. Recognizing that the sheer size of the Empire was a detriment to its
effective governance, Diocletian decided to share power with a co-emperor:
Diocletian ruled the eastern half of the Empire and his co-emperor
Maximian ruled the west. Then, about ten years after he took the throne,
Diocletian decided to further divide responsibility and each emperor took on
the junior emperor. This created the Tetrarchy, the rule of four. Diocletian
further subdivided the Empire, so that for the rest of his reign, the four co-
emperors (two “Augusti” and two “caesars”) worked together to administer
the entire territory.
3) Who was Constantine? How did he reorganize and change the
Roman Empire? What reforms did he implement?
Constantine was a general (at the time stationed in Britain), son of the
Tetrarch Constantius launched a military campaign to reunite the Empire
under his sole rule. By 312 CE he had succeeded, claiming total control
and appointing no co-emperor.
Constantine did away with the system of co-emperors (although it would re-
emerge after his death), but otherwise, he left things as they had been
under Diocletian's reforms. The eastern and western halves of the Empire
still had separate administrations and he kept up the size and organization
of the army. He also took a decisive step toward stabilizing the economy by
issuing new currency based on a fixed gold standard. The new coin, the
solidus, was to be the standard international currency of the western world
for 800 years.
Constantine’s greatest historical impact, however, was in the realm of
religion. He was the first Christian emperor, something that had an
enormous effect on the history of Europe and, ultimately, the world. Before
his climactic battle in 312 CE to defeat his last rival to the imperial throne,
Constantine had a vision that he claimed was sent by the Christian God,
promising him victory if he converted to Christianity. There are plenty of
theories about a more cynical explanation for his conversion (most
revolving around the fact that Constantine went on to plunder the temples
of the old Roman gods), but regardless of the fact that he used his
conversion to help himself to the wealth of "pagan" temples, he actively
supported Christian institutions and empowered Christian officials.
Ultimately, his sponsorship of Christianity saw it expand dramatically in his
lifetime. In 324 CE, Constantine founded a new capital city for the entire
empire at the site of the ancient Greek town of Byzantium, at the
intersection of Europe and Anatolia (he renamed it “Constantine’s City,”
Constantinople, which is today Istanbul). It was at the juncture of the
eastern and western halves of the Empire, with all trade routes between
Asia and Europe passing through its area of influence. It became the heart
of wealth and power in the Empire and a Christian “new beginning" for
Roman civilization itself. The city grew to become one of the great cities of
late antiquity and the middle Ages; it was fed by grain from Egypt and
brought in an enormous wealth through trade. Subsequent emperors also
built up massive fortifications, walls so strong that it took 1,000 years for an
enemy to be able to breach them (namely the Ottoman Turks, who finally
conquered the city in 1453 CE).
4) What was the “Cult of Mithras”? What group within Roman society
worshipped Mithras?
The “Cult of Mithras” was a Roman mystery religion centered on the god
Mithras. Even Rome’s perennial adversary Persia supplied sources of
spiritual inspiration to Rome. A Zoroastrian demigod, Mithras, became
immensely popular among Romans. Mithras believed that Mithras had
been a soldier, slain by his enemies, who then rose to enjoy eternal life.
Roman soldiers campaigning in Persia brought Mithraism back to Rome -
Mithras’s identity as a former soldier made his worship all the more
appealing to members of the Roman military. The worship of Mithras was
so popular that, some historians have noted, it is easy to imagine the
Roman Empire becoming Mithran instead of Christian if Constantine had
not converted to the latter faith.

4) Describe the Relationship between Rome and the Jews.

The Roman territory of Palestine was a thorn in Rome's side, thanks to the
unshakeable opposition of the Jews. Palestine suffered from heavy taxation
and deeply-felt resentment among its population toward the Romans. One
key point of contention was that the Jews refused to pay lip service to the
divinity of the emperors; the Romans insisted that their subjects participate
in symbolic rituals acknowledging the primacy of the emperors. Since the
Jews were strict monotheists, they would not do so. In 66 CE there was a
huge uprising against Rome. It took four years for imperial forces to crush
the uprising, resulting in the greatest disaster in ancient Jewish history: the
permanent destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE. In the
aftermath, the Romans enslaved or deported much of the Jewish
population, which contributed to the phenomenon of the Jewish diaspora,
the people without a homeland united only by the Hebrew Bible, the
teaching of the rabbis, and Jewish cultural traditions. Other uprising
decades later (between 132 - 136 CE) resulted in the almost complete
dispersal of the Jews, to the point that the Jewish homeland was truly lost
to them until the foundation of the modern state of Israel in 1948 CE.

5) Who was Jesus of Nazareth? What is the main source of

information on the life of Jesus?
The Jewish uprising that occurred against the Romans in 66 CE happened
a generation after the death of another Jewish revolutionary of sorts: Jesus
of Nazareth. The major source of information on the life of Jesus is the four
gospels, accounts of his life and teachings composed after his death by
three of his apostles (his closest followers and students), Matthew, Mark,
and John, and another early Christian leader, Luke. The gospels were
transmitted orally for decades before being recorded in their definitive
versions; most scholars now date the written gospels to approximately 90
CE (about sixty years after the death of Jesus). While the specific language
of the gospels is, of course, different, and some of the events described are
also described differently, the gospels agree on most of the major aspects
of the life of Jesus.

6) Explain the emergence and growth of early Christianity. How did

the spread of Christianity change following the conversion of
Constantine?
At the beginning of the Christian faith, there was no single set of texts or
beliefs that united Christians. The four major gospels do not agree on
everything, because they were written by different people from memory
(decades after the apostles themselves were alive). It was St. Paul, a
Jewish leader formerly named Saul who underwent a profound conversion
experience and became the foremost Christian evangelist, who popularized
the notion that Jesus's death on the cross was part of a divine plan that
canceled out human sin. For hundreds of years, the Christians debated and
argued about what Christ's message had “really” been, because many of
Jesus's teachings were, and are, open to interpretation. Early Christians
were divided on very significant issues, including:
 What God did Jesus represent? One cult believed that the God of
Christ was not the Jewish God, who had been vengeful and warlike;
according to this sect, Christ's God was a more powerful and loving
deity come to save the world from Yahweh.
 Was Jesus the messiah? In Jewish doctrine, the messiah was to be a
figure that liberated the Jews from oppression and made good on the
Covenant between the Jews and God, delivering the Promised Land
for all eternity. Many Jews had hoped that Jesus would be a
revolutionary against Roman rule and, since Judea remained in
Roman hands after his death, they did not believe that Jesus had
been the messiah. Early Christians came to insist, following Paul, that
Jesus had indeed been the messiah, but that the "liberation" he
offered was spiritual in nature, rather than having to do with prosaic
politics. In other words, the potential to save one's soul from
damnation superseded the old Covenant.
 Was Jesus human, or was he instead somehow God Himself? He
had lived like a normal man, but according to the gospels he had also
performed miracles, and he claimed to be the son of God. Likewise,
 while Jesus lived an exemplary life, he also displayed traits like anger
and doubt (the latter most famously on the cross when he asked God
why He had “forsaken” Jesus), traits that did not seem those of a
“perfect” being. This debate would go on for centuries, with equally
pious groups of Christians coming to completely different conclusions
about Christ's divine and human natures.
Before Constantine's conversion, Christianity had expanded through
missionary work, which succeeded in founding congregations across the
Empire but did not seriously disrupt polytheism or the Empire’s religious
diversity. Imperial sponsorship changed that because it linked secular
power to Christian identity. Following Constantine's conversion, being a
Christian became a way to get ahead in the Roman power structure, and
over time it became a liability to remain a polytheist. Thus, whereas early
Christianity had been a religion of the common people, Roman elites
flocked to convert after Constantine did so in order to stay in the emperor's
good graces.
Early Christians had already developed a distinct hierarchy of worshipers, a
divide between priests and worshipers. Bishops were the head of each
city's congregation, and they oversaw a staff of priests and deacons who
interacted with everyday worshipers and led services. The bishops of main
cities, usually the imperial capitals of their respective provinces, came to be
called an archbishop. Each bishop oversaw activity in the diocese, again
following the imperial structure, in instructing people in Christian doctrine
and in building charity networks. One important effect was that the church
actively supported charities for the poor and hungry, a practice that won
over new converts. This marks one of the first times in history when a
religion linked together with a message of compassion for the needy and
real, practical efforts to help the needy. In another strong contrast with
Roman practice, Christianity saw disenfranchised groups like women and
the poor (not to mention poor women) play major roles in the church’s
organization, especially before “official” Christianity came into being under
Constantine.

7) Discuss some of reasons for the fall of Western Rome.

The fall of Rome, conventionally dated to 476 CE, is one of the most iconic
events in the history of the western world. For centuries, people have tried
to draw lessons from Rome’s decline and fall about their own societies, a
practice inspired by the question of how so mighty and, at one time, stable
a civilization could so utterly disintegrate. The answers have varied
considerably: Rome grew corrupt and weak over time, Rome was infiltrated
by “barbarian” cultures, Rome was simply overcome by overwhelming
odds, or perhaps Rome was simply transformed into a different, more
diverse set of societies rather than destroyed in so many words. However
the events of the period are interpreted, the simple fact remains: the
political unity of the Roman Empire was shattered by the end of the fifth
century CE.
While the debate as to the causes of Rome’s fall will probably never be
definitively answered, an important caveat should be noted: Rome did not
"really" fall for another thousand years, even though the city of Rome itself,
along with the western half of the Empire, did indeed lose its sovereignty in
the face of invasion by Germanic "barbarians." The Roman capital had
already been moved to Constantinople in the early fourth century, and the
eastern half of the empire remained intact, albeit under constant military
pressure, until 1453. Arguably, one of the major causes for the collapse of
the western empire was the fact that the Empire as a whole had focused its
resources in the east for a century by the time waves of invaders appeared
on the horizon starting in the fourth century CE.
At the time, most Christians blamed polytheism and heresy for Rome's fall:
it was God's wrath exacted on a sinful society. In turn, the remaining
polytheists blamed Christians for undermining the worship of the gods who
had presided over the Empire while Rome was great. From the
contemporary perspective, Rome's fall seems to have less to do with divine
intervention than routine defeats and a growing barbarian threat.

8) Describe Rome’s relationship with the “barbarians” during the final

years of the Roman Empire.
Romans had always held "barbarians" in contempt, and they believed that
the lands held by barbarians (such as Scotland and Germany) were largely
unsuitable for civilization, being too cold and wet for the kind of
Mediterranean agriculture Romans were accustomed to. Romans believed
that barbarian peoples like the Germans were inferior to subject peoples
like the Celts, who could at least be made useful subjects (and, later,
citizens) of the Empire. For the entire history of the Empire, the Romans
never seem to have figured out exactly which groups they were interacting
with; they would simply lump them together as “Goths” or even “Scythians,”
a blanket term referring to steppe peoples. Occasionally, hundreds of years
after they “should have known better,” Roman writers would actually refer
to Germans as Celts.
The only place worthy of Roman recognition as another "true" civilization
was Persia. When Rome was forced to cede territory to Persia in 363 CE
after a series of military defeats, Roman writers were aghast because the
loss of territory represented “abandoning” it to the other civilization and
state. When barbarians seized territory, however, it rarely warranted any
mention among Roman writers, since it was assumed that the territory
could and would be reclaimed whenever it was convenient for Rome.
Meanwhile, there had been hundreds of years of on-again, off-again
ongoing wars along the Roman borders before the “fall” of Rome actually
occurred. Especially since the third century, major conflicts were an
ongoing reality of the enormous borders along the Rhine and Danube;
those conflicts had prompted emperors to build the system of limes that
held the barbarians in check. From that point on, the majority of Roman
legions were usually deployed along with the limes, the semi-fortified
northern borders of the Empire. There is evidence that many of those
soldiers spent their careers as not-so-glorified border guards and
administrators and never experienced battle itself; there is no question that
the performance of the Roman military was far poorer in the late imperial
period than it had been, for instance, under the Republic.
The bottom line is that, as of the late fourth century CE, it seemed like
“business as usual” to most political and military elites in the Roman
Empire. The borders were teeming with barbarians, but they had always
been teeming with barbarians. Rome traded with them, enlisted them as
soldiers, and fought them off or punished them as Roman leaders thought it
necessary. No one in Rome seemed to think that this state of affairs would
ever change. What contemporary historians have determined, however, is
that things had changed: there were more barbarians than ever before,
they were better-organized, and they were capable of defeating large
Roman forces. What followed was a kind of "barbarian domino effect" that
ultimately broke the western Empire into pieces and ended Roman power
over it.

9) What were Byzantium / The Byzantine Empire?

Byzantium was an ancient Greek city in classical antiquity that became
known as Constantinople in late antiquity and Istanbul today. The Greek
name Byzantion and its Latinization Byzantium continued to be used as a
name of Constantinople sporadically and to varying degrees during the
thousand-year existence of the Byzantine Empire. Byzantium was
colonized by the Greeks from Megara in 657 BC and remained primarily
Greek-speaking until its conquest by the Ottoman Empire in AD 1453.
The Byzantine Empire also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or
Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in its eastern
provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city
was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western
Roman Empire in the 5th century and continued to exist for an additional
thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. During most of
its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and
military force in Europe.

10) How was the Eastern Empire (Byzantine) able to survive while the
Western Empire (Rome) went into decline?
Byzantine civilization’s origins are to be found in the decision by the
emperor Constantine to found a new capital in the Greek village of
Byzantium, renamed Constantinople (“Constantine’s city”). By the time the
western empire fell, the center of power in the “Roman” empire had long
since shifted to the east: by the fifth century CE the majority of wealth and
power was concentrated in the eastern half of the empire. The people of
Constantinople and the eastern empire did not call it "Byzantium" or
themselves "Byzantines" - they continued to refer to themselves as
"Romans" long after Rome itself was permanently outside of their territory
and control.
After the fall of the western empire, the new Germanic kings acknowledged
the authority of the emperor in Constantinople. They were formally his
vassals (lords in his service) and he remained the emperor of the entire
Roman Empire in the name. At least until the Byzantine Empire began to
decline in the seventh century, this was not just a convenient fiction. Even
the Franks, who ruled a kingdom on the other end of Europe furthest from
the reach of Constantinople, lived in genuine fear of a Byzantine invasion
since the treaties they had established with Constantinople were full of
loopholes and could be repudiated by any given emperor.

11) Who was Justinian? How did he impact and change the Roman
Empire?
The most important early emperor of Byzantium was Justinian, who ruled
from 527 to 565. Justinian was the last Roman emperor to speak Latin as
his native tongue; afterward, all emperors spoke Greek. He is remembered
for being both an incredibly fervent Christian, a major military leader, the
sponsor of some of the most beautiful and enduring Byzantine architecture
in existence, and the husband of probably the most powerful empress in
the history of the empire, a former actress and courtesan named Theodora.
Justinian created a tradition that was to last for all of Byzantine history: that
of the emperor is both the spiritual leader of the Christian church and the
secular ruler of the empire itself. By the time the western empire fell, the
archbishops of Rome had begun their
Attempts to assert their authority over the church (they would not succeed
even in the west for many centuries, however). Those claims were never
accepted in the east, where it was the emperor who was responsible for
laying down the final word on matters of religious doctrine. Justinian felt
that it was his sacred duty as leader of the greatest Christian empire in the
world to enforce religious uniformity among his subjects and to stamp out
heresy. He called himself “beloved of Christ,” a title the later emperors
would adopt as well. While he was never able to force all of his subjects to
conform to Christian orthodoxy (especially in rural regions far from the
capital city), he did launch a number of attacks and persecutory campaigns
against heretical sects.
One aspect of Justinian’s focus on Christian purification was the
destruction of the ancient traditions of paganism in Greece and the
surrounding areas initiated by his Christian predecessors. The Olympics
had already been shut down by the emperor Theodosius I back in 393 CE
(he objected to their status as a pagan religious festival, not an athletic
competition). Justinian insisted that all teachers and tutors convert to
Christianity and renounce their teaching of the Greek classics; when they
refused in 528, he shut down Plato’s Academy, functioning at that point for
almost 1,000 years.
Justinian did not just enforce religious uniformity; he also imposed Roman
law on all of his subject peoples. The empire had traditionally left local
customs and laws alone so long as they did not interfere in the important
business of tax collection, troop recruitment, and loyalty to the empire.
Justinian saw Roman law as an aspect of Roman unity, however, and
sought to stamp out other forms of law under his jurisdiction. He had legal
experts go through the entire corpus of Roman law, weed out the
contradictions and figure out the laws that needed to be enforced. He
codified this project in the Corpus Juris Civilis, which forms the direct
textual antecedent for most of the legal systems still in use in Europe.

12) Who was Heraclius? What challenges did he face during his
reign? How did he reorganize the government and military of the
Byzantine Empire?
The most significant leader after Justinian was the emperor Heraclius (r.
610 – 641). He was originally a governor who returned from his post in
Africa to seize the throne from a rival named Phocas in the midst of a
Persian invasion. The empire was in such disarray at the time that the
Persians seized Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt, cutting off a huge part of the
food supply to Constantinople. In the process, the Persians even seized the
“True Cross,” the cross on which (so Christians at the time believed) Christ
Himself had been crucified, from its resting place in Jerusalem.
Simultaneously, the Avars and Bulgars, barbarian peoples related to the
Huns, were pressing Byzantine territory from the north, and piracy was rife
in the Mediterranean.
Heraclius managed to save the core of the empire, Anatolia and Greece, by
recruiting free peasants to fight instead of relying on mercenaries. He also
focused on Anatolia as the breadbasket of the empire, temporarily
abandoning Egypt but keeping his people fed. He led Byzantine armies to
seize back Jerusalem and the True Cross from the Persians, soundly
defeating them in 628, and in 630 he personally returned the True Cross to
its shrine in Jerusalem. The fighting during this period was often desperate
- Constantinople itself was besieged by an allied force of Avars and
Persians at one point - but in the end, Heraclius managed to pull the
empire back from the brink.
Despite his success in staving off disaster, however, a new threat to
Byzantium was growing in the south. The very same year that Heraclius
returned the True Cross to Jerusalem, the Islamic Prophet Muhammad
returned to his native city of Mecca in the Arabian Peninsula with the first
army of Muslims. Heraclius had no way of knowing it, but Byzantium would
soon face a threat even greater than that of the Persians: the Arab
caliphates (considered in the following chapter). Indeed, Heraclius himself
was forced to lead Byzantium during the first wave of the Arab invasions,
and despite his own leadership ability vital territories like Syria, Palestine,
and Egypt were lost during his own lifetime (he died in 641, the same year
that most of Egypt was conquered by the Arabs).
Heraclius created a new administrative system to try to defend the
remaining Byzantine territory: themes. He began by seizing lands from
wealthy landowners and monasteries in Asia Minor, then using the seized
land as the basis for new territories from which to recruit soldiers. A theme
was a territory, originally about a quarter of the empire in size, organized
around military recruitment. A single general appointed directly by the
emperor controlled each theme. In turn, only soldiers from that theme
would serve in it; this led to local pride in the military prowess of the theme,
which helped morale. It was only because of the success of the themes
that Byzantine losses were not much worse, considering the strength of
their foreign enemies. Eventually, the themes changed further into self-
sustaining military systems. Soldiers were granted land to become farmers.
From there, they were to fund the purchase of weapons for themselves and
their sons. Young men still joined the army, but the system could operate
without significant cash flow from the imperial treasury back in
Constantinople.

13) What was the “Great Schism”? Discuss the controversy over
iconoclasm or “icons” which led to the “Great Schism”.
The East-West Schism (also the Great Schism or Schism of 1054) is the
break of communion since the 11th century between the Catholic Church
and Eastern Orthodox Church. The schism was the culmination of
theological and political differences which had developed during the
preceding centuries between Eastern and Western Christianity.
The official ban of icons lasted until 843, over a century; before the
emperors reversed it (it was an empress, named Theodora like the famous
wife of Justinian centuries earlier, who led the charge to officially restore
icons). The controversy weakened the empire by dividing it between
iconoclasts loyal to the official policy of the emperors and traditionalists
who venerated the icons, while the empire itself was still beset by
invasions. Iconoclasm also lent itself to what would eventually become a
permanent split between the eastern and western churches - Orthodoxy
and Catholicism. The final and permanent split between the western and
eastern churches, already de facto in place for centuries, was in 1054 when
pope Leo IX and the patriarch Michael I excommunicated each other after
Michael refused to acknowledge Leo’s preeminence – this event cemented
the "Great Schism" (schism means "break" or "split") between the western
and eastern churches.
In the wake of iconoclasm, the leaders of the Orthodox Church, the
patriarchs of Constantinople, would claim that innovations in theology or
Christian practice were heresies. This attitude extended to secular learning
as well – it was acceptable to study classical literature and even
philosophy, but new forms of philosophy and scholarly innovation was
regarded as dangerous. The long-term pattern was thus that, while it
preserved ancient learning, Byzantine intellectual culture did not lend itself
to progress.
14) Discuss the reasons and events for the eventual decline of the
Byzantine Empire.
Byzantium’s major ongoing problem was that it faced a seemingly endless
series of external threats. Byzantium was surrounded by hostile states and
groups for most of its existence, and it slowly but steadily lost territory until
it was little more than the city of Constantinople and its immediate
territories. It is important to remember, however, that this process took
many centuries, longer even than the Roman Empire itself had lasted in the
west. During that time, Constantinople was one of the largest and most
remarkable cities on the planet, with half a million people and trade goods
and visitors from as far away as Scandinavia, Africa, and England. Its
people believed that their empire and their emperor were preserved by God
Himself as the rightful seat of the Christian religion. Thanks to the resilience
of its people, the prosperity of its trade networks, and the leadership of its
emperors (the effective ones, anyway), Byzantium remained a major state
and culture for centuries despite its long-term decline in power from the
days of Justinian. In the 11th century, the empire experienced a major
catastrophe in which most of its heartland territory in Anatolia was lost to
the Seljuk Turks following the Battle of Manzikert and the ensuing civil war.
At the same time, the empire lost its last territory in Italy to the Norman
Kingdom of Sicily and faced repeated attacks on its territory in the Balkans.
These events created the context for emperor Alexios I Komnenos to call to
the west for help, which led to the First Crusade. However, economic
concessions to the Italian Republics of Venice and Genoa weakened the
empire's control over its own finances, especially from the 13th century
onward, while tensions with the West led to the Sack of Constantinople by
the forces of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 and the dismemberment of the
empire. Although a number of small Byzantine successor states survived
and eventually reclaimed Constantinople in 1261, the empire had been
severely weakened. In the longer term, the rise of Turkish power in Anatolia
eventually gave rise to the Ottoman Empire which rapidly conquered the
former Byzantine heartland over the course of the 14th and 15th centuries,
culminating in the Fall of Constantinople to the army of Sultan Mehmed the
Conqueror in 1453.

Big Names:
Describe the following “Big Names”. Who were they why are they
important?
1) Jesus of Nazareth
According to the gospels, Jesus of Nazareth was the son of the miraculous
union of the Holy Spirit, one of the aspects of the Jewish God Yahweh, and
a virgin named Mary. Jesus showed an aptitude for theological and spiritual
understanding at a young age, debating Jewish doctrine with learned
Jewish priests when he was still a boy. At the age of thirty, having earned
his living as a carpenter up to that point, Jesus began to preach a message
of salvation that revolved around the concept that mankind as a whole
could be saved if it sought forgiveness from God for its sins. He traveled
and delivered his teachings in the Roman province of Palestine and the
nearby puppet kingdoms dominated by the Romans for three years, but
were then arrested by the Roman authorities for inciting rebellion. In the
end, Jesus was executed in the customary Roman fashion of crucifixion at
the age of 33.
According to the gospels, Jesus returned to life, with an angel rolling the
boulder back from the entrance to the tomb in which his body had been laid
to rest. He renewed his call for devotion to God and the offer of salvation
for those who sought forgiveness, then passed into the divine presence.
Jesus's followers, led by the twelve apostles, began to teach his lessons to
others, and the new religion of Christianity was born. His followers began to
refer to Jesus as "the Christ," meaning "the anointed one" in Greek, a
reference to the idea that Jesus was anointed to provide salvation for
humanity.

2) Theodosius I
Theodosius I was called Theodosius the Great, was a Roman emperor
from 379 to 395. During his reign, he faced and overcame a war against
the Goths and two civil wars, and was key in establishing the creed of
Nicaea as the universal orthodoxy for Christianity. Theodosius was also the
last to unite the whole Roman Empire under his rule before its
administration was permanently split between two separate western and
eastern courts. A native of Hispania, Theodosius was the son of a top-
ranking general; count Theodosius, on whose staff the count served in
several military campaigns. In the 370s the younger Theodosius received
an independent military command in the Balkans, where he repelled
several incursions by the Sarmatians. Between 375 and 377, he went into
retirement, and his father was executed under obscure circumstances, but
the emperor Gratian recalled Theodosius with full honors shortly afterward
and gave him further promotions. In 379, after the eastern Roman emperor
Valens perished at the Battle of Adrianople against the Goths, Gratian
appointed Theodosius to succeed him and take charge of the military
emergency. The new emperor's resources and depleted armies were not
sufficient to drive the invaders out, and, in 382, the Goths were allowed to
settle south of the Danube as autonomous allies of the Empire. In 386,
Theodosius signed a treaty with the Sasanian Empire, which partitioned the
long-disputed Kingdom of Armenia and secured a durable peace between
the two powers.

3) St. Paul the Apostle

Paul the Apostle commonly known as Saint Paul and also known by his
Hebrew name Saul of Tarsus was a Christian apostle (although not one of
the Twelve Apostles) who spread the teachings of Jesus in the first-century
world. Generally regarded as one of the most important figures of the
Apostolic Age, he founded several Christian communities in Asia Minor and
Europe from the mid-30s to the mid-50s AD.
According to the New Testament book Acts of the Apostles (often called
the Book of Acts or simply Acts), Paul participated in the persecution of
early disciples of Jesus, possibly Hellenised diaspora Jews converted to
Christianity, in the area of Jerusalem, prior to his conversion. In the
narrative of Acts, Paul was traveling on the road from Jerusalem to
Damascus on a mission to "arrest them and bring them back to Jerusalem"
when the ascended Jesus appeared to him in a great bright light. He was
struck blind, but after three days his sight was restored by Ananias of
Damascus and Paul began to preach that Jesus of Nazareth was the
Jewish messiah and the Son of God. Approximately half of the Book of
Acts deals with Paul's life and works.

4) St. Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo (13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as
Saint Augustine, was a theologian, philosopher, and the bishop of Hippo
Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings influenced the
development of Western philosophy and Western Christianity, and he is
viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church in
the Patristic Period. His many important works include The City of God, On
Christian Doctrine, and Confessions.
Augustine is recognized as a saint in the Catholic Church, the Eastern
Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. He is also a preeminent
Catholic Doctor of the Church and the patron of the Augustinians. His
memorial is celebrated on 28 August, the day of his death. Augustine is the
patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, and a number of cities and
dioceses. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists and Lutherans, consider
him one of the theological fathers of the Protestant Reformation due to his
teachings on salvation and divine grace. Protestant Reformers generally,
and Martin Luther in particular, held Augustine in preeminence among early
Church Fathers. Luther was, from 1505 to 1521, a member of the Order of
the Augustinian Eremites.

5) Alaric
Alaric I (370 – 410 AD) was the first king of the Visigoths, from 395 to 410.
He rose to leadership of the Goths who came to occupy Moesia—territory
acquired a couple of decades earlier by a combined force of Goths and
Alans after the Battle of Adrianople.
Alaric began his career under the Gothic soldier Gainas and later joined the
Roman army. Once an ally of Rome under Emperor Theodosius, Alaric
helped defeat the Franks and other allies of a would-be Roman usurper.
Despite losing many thousands of his men, he received little recognition
from Rome and left the Roman army disappointed. After the death of
Theodosius and the disintegration of the Roman armies in 395, he is
described as the king of the Visigoths. As the leader of the only effective
field force remaining in the Balkans, he sought Roman legitimacy, never
quite achieving a position acceptable to himself or to the Roman
authorities.

6) Attila the Hun

Attila (406–453), frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns
from 434 until his death in March 453. He was also the leader of a tribal
empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans, and Bulgars, among others,
in Central and Eastern Europe. During his reign, he was one of the most
feared enemies of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. He crossed
the Danube twice and plundered the Balkans, but was unable to take
Constantinople. His unsuccessful campaign in Persia was followed in 441
by an invasion of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, the success of
which emboldened Attila to invade the West. He also attempted to conquer
Roman Gaul (modern France), crossing the Rhine in 451 and marching as
far as Aurelianum (Orléans) before being stopped in the Battle of the
Catalaunian Plains.

7) Odoacer
Italy itself held out until 476 when an Ostrogothic (“eastern Goth”) warlord
named Odoacer deposed the last emperor and declared himself king of
Italy; the Roman emperor in Constantinople (having little choice) approved
of Odoacer’s authority in Italy in return for a nominal pledge of loyalty.
Subsequently, Odoacer was deposed and killed by a different Ostrogothic
king, Theodoric, in 493, but the link with Constantinople remained intact.
The Roman emperor worked out a deal with Theodoric to stabilize Italy,
and Theodoric went on to rule for decades (r. 493 - 526). Thus, by 500 CE
Italy and the city of Rome were no longer part of the Empire still called
"Roman" by the people of the eastern Empire. By the end of the fifth
century, the western Empire was gone, replaced by a series of kingdoms
ruled by Germanic peoples but populated by former citizens of the Roman
Empire.

8) Clovis
Clovis I (466, Tournai – November 27, 511, Paris) was king of the Frankish
Kingdom from 481 to 511. Of the Mérovée family, Clovis I is considered the
first official Christian king of the Franks. The name Clovis comes from the
Frankish word Hlodowig, consisting of two roots hlod meaning famous and
famous and wig meaning battle. Hlodowig was famous in battle.
Clovis was born in 466, the son of Childéric I, king of the Franks of the Sea
of Tournai. In 481, Clovis was crowned. In 486, defeating Syagrius at the
Battle of Soissons, Clovis I's rule extended to all of northern Gaule. In the
490s, Clovis's domain expanded further into the Mediterranean. Clovis I
converted to Christianity and in 508 made Paris the capital of his kingdom.

9) Theodora
Theodora (June 28, 548) was an empress of the Eastern Roman Empire,
the wife of Emperor Justinian I. She was one of the most influential and
powerful queens of the Byzantine Empire, despite her background. modest.
Along with her husband, she is a saint of the Eastern Orthodox Church,
whose feast day is November 14.

10) St. Cyril

An important figure in the history of eastern Christianity was St. Cyril, who
in the ninth century created an alphabet for the Slavic languages, now
called Cyrillic, and still used in many Slavic languages including Russian.
He then translated Greek liturgy into Slavonic and used it to teach and
convert the inhabitants of Moravia and Bulgaria. Monasteries sprung up,
from which monks would go further into Slavic lands, ultimately tying
together a swath of territory deep into what would one day be Russia. The
success of these missionary efforts united much of Eastern Europe and
Byzantium in a common religious culture - that of Eastern Orthodoxy. Thus,
up to the present, the Greek, Russian, Ukrainian, and Serbian Orthodox
churches all share common historical roots and a common set of beliefs
and practices.
11) Vladimir the Great
Vladimir Sviatoslavich (July 15, 1015), called the Great, was Prince of
Novgorod, Grand Prince of Kiev, and ruler of Kievan Rus' from 980 to 1015.
Vladimir's father was Prince Sviatoslav I of Kiev of the Rurik dynasty. After
the death of his father in 972, Vladimir, who was then the prince of
Novgorod, was forced to flee to Scandinavia in 976 after his brother
Yaropolk murdered his other brother Oleg of Drelinia and conquered Rus'.
In Sweden, with the help of his relative Ladejarl Håkon Sigurdsson, ruler of
Norway, he assembled a Varangian army and reconquered Novgorod from
Yaropolk. By 980, Vladimir had consolidated the Rus realm from modern-
day Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine to the Baltic Sea and had solidified the
frontiers against incursions of Bulgarians, Baltic tribes, and Eastern
nomads. Originally a follower of Slavic paganism, Vladimir converted to
Christianity in 988 and Christianized the Kievan Rus'. He is thus also
known as Saint Vladimir.

Vocabulary Terms:
Provide the definition and know the significance of each term below.
1) Praetorian Guard
The Praetorian Guard was an elite unit of the Imperial Roman army whose
members served as personal bodyguards and intelligence for Roman
emperors. During the era of the Roman Republic, the Praetorians served
as a small escort force for high-ranking officials such as senators or
provincial governors like procurators, and also serving as bodyguards for
high-ranking officers within the Roman legions. With the republic's
transition into the Roman Empire, however, the first emperor, Augustus,
reformed the Guard as his personal security detail. Although they continued
to serve in this capacity for roughly three centuries, the Guard became
notable for its intrigue and interference in Roman politics, to the point of
overthrowing emperors and proclaiming their successors. In 312, the Guard
was disbanded by Constantine the Great, as he oversaw the destruction of
their barracks at the Castra Praetoria.

2) Tetrarchy
The Tetrarchy was the system instituted by Roman Emperor Diocletian in
293 to govern the ancient Roman Empire by dividing it between two senior
emperors, the Augusti, and their juniors and designated successors, the
caesars. This marked the end of the Crisis of the Third Century.
3) Jewish diaspora
The Jewish diaspora is the dispersion of Israelites or Jews out of their
ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel) and their subsequent settlement in
other parts of the globe.

4) Arianism
Arianism is an Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius (c. AD 256–
336), a Christian presbyter in Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God the Father. The
Arian concept of Christ is based on the belief that the Son of God did not
always exist but was begotten within time by God the Father, therefore
Jesus was not co-eternal with God the Father. Arianism holds that the Son
is distinct from the Father (and therefore subordinate to Him).

5) Monasticism
Monasticism or monkhood is a religious way of life in which one renounces
worldly pursuits to devote oneself fully to spiritual work. Monastic life plays
an important role in many Christian churches, especially in the Catholic and
Orthodox traditions as well as in other faiths such as Buddhism, Hinduism,
and Jainism. In other religions, monasticism is criticized and not practiced,
as in Islam and Zoroastrianism, or plays a marginal role, as in modern
Judaism. Women pursuing a monastic life are generally called nuns,
religious or sisters or rarely, Canonesses, while monastic men are called
monks, friars, or brothers.

6) Anchorites
An anchorite or anchoret (female: anchoress) is someone who, for religious
reasons, withdraws from secular society so as to be able to lead an
intensely prayer-orientated, ascetic, or Eucharist-focused life. Whilst
anchorites are frequently considered to be a type of religious hermit, unlike
hermits they were required to take a vow of stability of place, opting for
permanent enclosure in cells often attached to churches. Also unlike
hermits, anchorites were subject to a religious rite of consecration that
closely resembled the funeral rite, following which they would be
considered dead to the world, a type of living saint. Anchorites had certain
autonomy, as they did not answer to any ecclesiastical authority other than
the bishop.

7) Monasteries
A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic
quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in
communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place
reserved for prayer which may be a chapel, church, or temple, and may
also serve as an oratory, or in the case of communities anything from a
single building housing only one senior and two or three junior monks or
nuns, to vast complexes and estates housing tens or hundreds. A
monastery complex typically comprises a number of buildings which
include a church, dormitory, cloister, refectory, library, balneary, and
infirmary. Depending on the location, the monastic order, and the
occupation of its inhabitants, the complex may also include a wide range of
buildings that facilitate self-sufficiency and service to the community. These
may include a hospice, a school, and a range of agricultural and
manufacturing buildings such as a barn, a forge, or a brewery.

8) Federatii
Many of the barbarians who settled along those borders were known as
federatii, tribal groups who entered into treaties with Rome that required
them to pay taxes in kind (i.e. in crops, animals, and other forms of wealth
rather than currency) and send troops to aid Roman conquests, and who
received peace and recognition (and usually annual gifts) in return.

9) Colosseum
The Colosseum is an oval amphitheater in the center of the city of Rome,
Italy, just east of the Roman Forum. It is the largest ancient amphitheater
ever built, and is still the largest standing amphitheater in the world today,
despite its age. Construction began under the emperor Vespasian (r. 69–79
AD) in 72 and was completed in 80 AD under his successor and heir, Titus
(r. 79–81). Further modifications were made during the reign of Domitian (r.
81–96). The three emperors that were patrons of the work are known as
the Flavian dynasty, and the amphitheater was named the Flavian
Amphitheatre (Latin: Amphitheatrum Flavium; Italian: Anfiteatro Flavio) by
later classicists and archaeologists for its association with their family name
(Flavius).

10) Huns
The beginning of the end for the Western Empire was the Huns. The Huns
were warriors of the central Asian steppes: expert horsemen, vicious
warriors, unattached to any particular land. They had much in common with
other groups of steppe peoples like the Scythians who had raided civilized
lands going back to the very emergence of civilization in Mesopotamia.
They were known to be so cruel and so unstoppable that the Germanic
barbarians further west claimed that they were the product of unions
between demons and witches, rather than normal humans.

11) Goths
The Goths were Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the
Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe.

12) Vandals
The Vandals were a Germanic people who first inhabited what is now
southern Poland. They established Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian
Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the 5th century.

13) Franks
The Franks were a group of Germanic peoples[1] whose name was first
mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources and associated with tribes
between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman
Empire. Later the term was associated with Romanized Germanic
dynasties within the collapsing Western Roman Empire, who eventually
commanded the whole region between the rivers Loire and Rhine. They
imposed power over many other post-Roman kingdoms and Germanic
peoples. Frankish rulers were given recognition by the Catholic Church as
successors to the old rulers of the Western Roman Empire.

14) Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia officially the Hagia Sophia Holy Grand Mosque, and formerly
the Church of Hagia Sophia, is a Late Antique place of worship in Istanbul,
designed by the Greek geometers Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of
Tralles. Built-in 537 as the patriarchal cathedral of the imperial capital of
Constantinople, it was the largest Christian church of the eastern Roman
Empire (the Byzantine Empire) and the Eastern Orthodox Church, except
during the Latin Empire from 1204 to 1261, when it became the city's Latin
Catholic cathedral. In 1453, after the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman
Empire, it was converted into a mosque. In 1935, the secular Turkish
Republic established it as a museum. In 2020, it re-opened as a mosque.

15) Plague of Justinian

The Plague of Justinian or Justinianic Plague (541–549 AD) was the first
major outbreak of the first plague pandemic, the first Old World pandemic
of plague, the contagious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.
The disease afflicted the entire Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Near
East, severely affecting the Sasanian Empire and the Byzantine Empire
and especially its capital, Constantinople. The plague is named for the
Byzantine emperor in Constantinople, Justinian I (r. 527–565) who,
according to his court historian Procopius, contracted the disease and
recovered in 542, at the height of the epidemic which killed about a fifth of
the population in the imperial capital. The contagion arrived in Roman
Egypt in 541, spread around the Mediterranean Sea until 544, and
persisted in Northern Europe and the Arabian Peninsula, until 549.