Sidonius tells the story of a brave Roman war
The landscape was not without alarms and overreactions, betraying the tension in the air. In a poem of praise for the emperor Majorian, whose...
Transit Gloria Mundi
After Aetius’s death, twenty years unfold in a sequence of events of little interest except to specialists. The historian Procopius, writing 100 years later,...
In matters of government and religion
In matters of government and religion, Alexandria did what it needed to do to remain on good terms with Constantinople, if always with reservations....
Alexandria never forgot that across the Mediterranean
Alexandria never forgot that across the Mediterranean and up through the Aegean lay the path to Constantinople—a city we will visit in later pages....
Like Dioscoros the Apiones
The emergence of this kind of superrich family subtly undermined imperial authority. They were no longer one of several dividing up the power in...
Ellatzbaas launched his invasion from Ethiopia
Then Ellatzbaas launched his invasion from Ethiopia, beginning with a solemn Mass in Axum cathedral, followed by the blessing of a fleet of seventy...
Monastic metropolis west of Constantinople
Cosmas returned to Alexandria to write his stories, and that’s why we know of him. Christian Topography, his lavish illustrated book, is something that...
A single piece of gleaming white marble
The throne was cut from a single piece of gleaming white marble. The visitors were surprised to see this, because they knew of such...
Ibn Battuta part 85
But no sense of the historian’s high vocation and essential impartiality could damp the racy individualism of Psellus’s approach nor the delicate artistry of...
Ibn Battuta part 84
In his introduction to the Chronographia Psellus explains that he had often been pressed to write a history of his own times and that...
