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Theophilus of Edessa on the death of Constans II
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2020
Abstract
It is argued that Theophanes the Confessor derives his information concerning the name of the baths where Constans II was allegedly assassinated from Theophilus of Edessa. It is further argued that Theophilus’ claim that Andrew deliberately killed Constans by hitting him with a bucket is rather unconvincing and may represent the hypothetical reconstruction of the event by an imperial administration that could not accept that the emperor had died as a result of an unfortunate accident.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press and Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies
References
1 See Hoyland, R. G., Theophilus of Edessa's Chronicle and the Circulation of Historical Knowledge in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, Translated Texts for Historians 57 (Liverpool 2001) esp. 7–15Google Scholar.
2 Ed. de Boor, C., Theophanis Chronographia (Leipzig 1883) 351Google Scholar.
3 See Mango, C. and Scott, R., The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History AD 284–813 (Oxford 1997) 490–1Google Scholar; Hoyland, Theophilus of Edessa, 162.
4 See Peeters, P., ‘Un vie grecque du pape S. Martin I’, Analecta Bollandiana 51 (1933) 225–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 253.
5 E.g. Constantine I built a fort called Daphne across the Danube from Moesia. See Procopius, Aed. 4.7.7. He also built the basilica of SS. Marcellinus and Peter and a mausoleum for his mother Helena on an imperial property entitled Ad Duas Lauros about 3 miles south-east of Rome on the Via Labicana. See Duchesne, L., Le Liber Pontificalis: Texte, introduction et commentaire I (Paris 1886) 182Google Scholar.
6 Trans. Hoyland, Theophilus of Edessa, 151.
7 On Agapius’ description of the death of Constans, see Hoyland, Theophilus of Edessa, 162.
8 For an ancient description of Daphne, see Libanius, Or.11(Antiochikos), 234–43.
9 On similarities shared between the chronicles of Theophanes and Agapius alone, see R. G. Hoyland, ‘Agapius, Theophilus, and Muslim sources’, in M. Jankowiak and F. Montinaro (eds), Studies in Theophanes, T&M 19 (Paris 2015) 355–64, at 357.
10 De Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, 351–2.
11 Trans. Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes, 491.
12 See M. Jankowiak, ‘The first Arab siege of Constantinople’, in C. Zuckerman (ed.), Constructing the Seventh Century, T&M 17 (Paris 2013) 237–320, at 306.
13 See S. Anthony, ‘Dionysius of Tell Maḥrē's Syriac account of the assassination of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 69 (2010) 209–24.
14 On this Troilus, see P. Allen and B. Neil, Maximus the Confessor and His Companions: Documents from Exile (Oxford 2002), 53, 61, 67, 69, 73, 107–17.
15 Chron. Byz. Arab. 25: Constans Augustus, qui rem publicam fomitibus procurabat, apud Syracusam, Sicilie inclitam urbem, ministrorum coniuratione peremptus est. Ed. J. Gil, Chronica Hispana: Saeculi VIII et IX, CCCM 65 (Turnhout 2018), 316. Niceph. Brev. 33: Κωνσταντῖνος οὖν ἐν Σικɛλίᾳ ὑπὸ τῶν ἰδίων ὑπηρɛτῶν δόλῳ φονɛυθɛὶς ἐν τῷ λουτρῷ, ἤδη ἐν τῇ βασιλɛίᾳ ɛἰκοστὸν ἕβδομον ἀνύσας ἔτος͵ ἐτɛλɛύτα. Ed. C. Mango, Nikephoros Patriarch of Constantinople Short History: Text, Translation and Commentary, Dumbarton Oaks Texts X (Washington DC 1990) 85.
16 Jankowiak, ‘The first Arab siege of Constantinople’, 307, argues that there was ‘a coup d’état in which the Byzantine government decided to remove the emperor’. Alternatively, on the basis of a garbled passage in Movses Dasxuranci, a late Armenian source, J. Howard-Johnston, Witnesses to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century (Oxford 2010) 224–5, 490–1, argues that Juansher, ruler of Albania in the Caucasus, was able to arrange the assassination of Constans on behalf of the caliph Mu‘awiya. See the critical comments of e.g. W. E. Kaegi, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 72 (2013) 330–3, at 331–2, in his review of this book.
17 Tacitus (Hist. 2.16) reports that the people of Corsica revolted and killed the procurator Decumus Pacuvius while he was in the bath in 69. For other examples, see Bremmer, J. N., ‘Agamemnon's death in the bath: Some parallels’, Mnemosyne 39 (1986) 418CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 See K-H. Uthemann, Anastasii Sinaitae: Sermones Duo in Constitutionem Hominis Secundum Imaginis Dei (Turnhout 1985) 61.
19 So Jankowiak, ‘The first Arab siege of Constantinople’, 306, claims of them that they ‘sensibly replace the silver bucket with a sword’.
20 It is clear from their language and content that many stories preserved by the witnesses to Theophilus’ text for the seventh century derive from a Greek source ultimately, even if commentators may then disagree as to the nature of this source or the exact path of transmission. See e.g. M. Conterno, ‘Theophilos, “The more likely candidate”’? Towards a reappraisal of the question of Theophanes’ “Oriental Sources”’, in Jankowiak and Montinaro, Studies in Theophanes, 383–400, at 386–93; Hoyland, Theophilus of Edessa, 23–6.
21 See Const. Porph. de Admin. Imp. 51. In general, see Vogt, A., ‘Le protospathaire de la phiale et la marine byzantine’, Échos d'Orient 39 (1941) 328–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
22 See Jenkins, R. J. H. (ed.), Constantine Porphyrogenitus: De Administrando Imperio, II: Commentary (London 1962) 199Google Scholar.
23 Duchesne, Le Liber Pontificalis I, 373. In general, see Haldon, J., Byzantine Praetorians: An Administrative, Institutional and Social Survey of the Opsikion and Tagmata (Bonn 1984) 184Google Scholar.
24 On the development of the navy under Constans II, see Zuckerman, C., ‘Learning from the enemy and more: Studies in “Dark Centuries” Byzantium’, Millennium 2 (2005) 79–135Google Scholar, esp. 107–25.
25 See Chron. Pasch. s.a. 450; Theoph. Chron. AM 6159.