While the Anonymous Cosmographer of Ravenna was listing all the coastal cities of the Mediterranean, the inland sea that he regarded as the centre of the world, its perpetual division between Christianity and Islam was underway. The losses suffered by the empire can be measured by the magnitude of the Christian population that passed under Muslim control. In 646 the North African ecclesiastical dioceses of Proconsularis and Byzacena recorded 109 bishops in their local synods. By the eighth century they were gradually dwindling, and the Arabs had advanced into Spain.
Another stage in this process of division occurred in 692, when Emperor Justinian II ordered the Sixth Oecumenical Council that had begun in 680 to reconvene in Constantinople in order to complete its work by revising the canons – ecclesiastical laws – of the church. This meeting is variously known as the Quini-Sext (Fifth-Sixth), meaning that its task was to complete the work of the Fifth and Sixth Councils, or as the Council in Trullo, because it met under the dome of the same hall in the Great Palace as it had in 680. It issued 102 disciplinary canons, which reviewed church rules, for example, on the authority of bishops over their diocesan monasteries. Once again, the position reserved for the church of Ravenna was very high, eleventh in the list, although no representative actually attended.1 And it is clear that other western bishops who had not been present were expected to add their assent to the final document agreed in 692. Thus, immediately after the signature of the emperor (in red) on the acts a space is left for the signature of ‘the most holy pope of Rome’; at seventh place, the archbishop of Thessalonike is indicated; at ninth, Sardinia; and at eleventh, Ravenna. Bishops of Herakleia in Thrace and Corinth would have added their signatures at positions twelve and thirteen.2
No canons for the whole Christian world had been issued since 451 and that world had changed irrevocably with the spread of Islam. Muslim rule over the huge provinces of Palestine, Syria, Egypt and North Africa prevented any bishops from these areas attending the council in either of its meetings, although the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem were represented. The first stage of the council a decade earlier had dedicated itself to theological issues of doctrine, and Ravenna had been recognized as one of the leading churches. The second stage, which Justinian II presided over, intended to provide legal regulations governing a wide range of religious behaviour and practice, from issues of celibacy and church discipline to the condition of Christians living ‘in barbarian lands’.
Although the council sought to add a unified set of canons that would apply to bishops and believers throughout the Oecumene, it failed to secure Rome’s support and thus lost considerable authority in the West, particularly in Ravenna. Instead of sending a special team to the meeting in which Ravenna might have participated, Pope Sergius (687–701) was represented by the papal legate resident in the capital and Bishop Basil of Gortyna (on Crete).3 Other bishops who had attended in 680–81 now returned to Constantinople, together with a number of more recently appointed clerics, many bringing specific legal problems to the meeting so that new canons could be formulated – for example, for Christian bishops fleeing from Muslim rule. For several months they discussed a wide range of issues, including measures to curb superstitions and irreverent practices, such as interpreting clouds as divine messages, that might deceive uneducated Christians (the simpleminded). Two canons were devoted to appropriate Christian art, the first stipulating the human depiction of Christ rather than his symbolic representation as the Lamb of God, and the second forbidding any artistic representation that might generate improper feelings.4 This emphasis on the incarnation, through Christ’s earthly life, both drew on and also encouraged the cult of icons. Justinian sent the final list of 102 regulations to all the leaders of the pentarchy, so that Christians everywhere would be aware of them.
Among these regulations canon 3 established that the see of Constantinople should be given the same honour as the see of Rome, while conceding the overall primacy of St Peter. This followed the imperial tradition that the city where the emperor resided should also have the highest ecclesiastical status. Pope Sergius, however, took exception to Constantinople’s claim to equal honour, as well as other rulings that he considered ‘outside the usages of the church’, offensive to the heirs of St Peter and even contrary to Roman practice, such as traditions of clerical celibacy, fasting and genuflecting.5 The Roman Book of the Pontiffs describes how ‘six copies of the acts had been written out, signed by the three patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch, and by the other prelates . . . confirmed by the hand of the emperor and placed in the despatchbox called scevrocarnalis and sent to Rome.’ The pope was to sign them at the top ‘as head of all the priests (sacerdotes)’, and he refused.6
In Ravenna Archbishop Damianus, who was elected after the death of Theodore in January 692, had been consecrated by Pope Sergius and shared his opposition to the council. There is no evidence that he was asked to sign the copies of the acts that had been sent to Rome; no western church leaders did so.7 The emperor therefore took urgent measures to acquire their agreement. First, Justinian sent Sergios, a magistrianus, to persuade the pope to sign, and when he failed in that task, the emperor retaliated by ordering the arrest of John, bishop of Portus, who had participated in the council of 680–81, and Boniface, counsellor of the papal see. The two were taken off to Constantinople and nothing more was heard of them.8 Justinian then sent a military officer, Zacharias the protospatharios, to arrest and remove the pope himself. In response to this drastic threat, local soldiers, specifically those of Ravenna, the Pentapolis and neighbouring regions, set off for Rome, determined to protect Pope Sergius and to prevent him being taken to the East. They arrived after Zacharias and found the city gates closed against them, because the protospatharios feared for his life and had begged the pope to protect him. According to the Book of the Pontiffs, he was so frightened that he took refuge inside the Lateran palace, even hiding under the pope’s bed.9
When the army of Ravenna learned that Zacharias was in the city, they forced their way through the gate of St Peter and marched to the palace to expel him. They also demanded to see the pope, fearing that he had already been smuggled out and put on board ship, a reaction that was obviously related to the treatment accorded to Pope Martin and to the other papal officials, who had not returned from Constantinople. When they arrived at the Lateran palace, Pope Sergius went out to reassure ‘the common soldiers and the people’ that he was alive and well. Only once the army of Ravenna had ensured that Zacharias had left the city, expelled ‘with injuries and insults’, did the troops abandon their defence of Rome and return home.10 Though the presence of the exarch is not noted, this military intervention by local forces from Ravenna and the Pentapolis was the first explicit defiance of Constantinopolitan authority; it implies that their loyalty to the imperial administration had been replaced by a determination to protect the bishop of Rome from arbitrary arrest.
The canons of 692, therefore, were not recognized in the West. In his anger at this refusal, Justinian may have transferred the ecclesiastical diocese of East Illyricum from Rome’s authority to that of Constantinople.11 This substantial area of the Balkans, Greece and the Aegean islands had been under the control of the bishop of Rome for centuries. Its transfer to Constantinople created another major disagreement between West and East, and popes would continue to demand the return of the diocese for centuries, to no avail. For his part, Justinian never forgot the antagonism of the army of Ravenna, which had humiliated his official Zacharias between 693 and 695.
The overthrow of Justinian II in 695 is a critical event in the history of Ravenna. The emperor believed that some of its citizens played a major role in this coup d’état, though the activity of his unscrupulous financial officials and their violent methods of extortion were more likely responsible for his downfall. The emperor’s increasing unpopularity in Constantinople came to a head when rumours began to circulate that he had ordered the murder of the city’s patriarch and all members of the Blue circus faction. In response, a rival military officer, Leontios, was persuaded by a prediction that he would become emperor to lead a military coup. He broke into the central prison, armed the inmates and ordered them to go through the city, shouting ‘All Christians to St Sophia!’ The population and the patriarch joined in the revolt, arrested and killed the hated financial advisers, and mutilated Justinian in a public ceremony in the Hippodrome.12 While the new emperor spared Justinian’s life, the symbolic act of cutting his nose and ears was designed to disqualify him from ruling, and Leontios (always identified as Leo on his coinage) exiled him to the Crimea.13
Paul the deacon correctly describes this extremely unpleasant operation: ‘Leo in banishing him cut off his nostrils.’14 This quite common procedure of nosecutting, rhinotomia, gave Justinian the nickname rhinotmetos, the emperor whose nose was cut. It was intended both to disfigure him and to prevent him from ever resuming his imperial dignity. To hold the office of emperor required a whole person, which is why eunuchs were never permitted to aspire to rule. It was in this extremely unattractive condition that Justinian was sent into exile in Cherson, a major port on the north coast of the Black Sea. His departure from Constantinople inaugurated a period of instability, in which other military officers decided to take their chances in capturing the post of emperor.
Meanwhile, in 697, the Arabs finally captured Carthage, the capital of the North African exarchate, and Leontios demonstrated a clear grasp of its strategic importance by sending a major seaborne expedition under John the patrician to recapture the city. These forces successfully occupied the capital and surrounding territory but were unable to resist the Arabs’ counterattack, which defeated them in 698.15 The imperial forces withdrew to Crete where a subordinate officer, Apsimar, rebelled and sailed on to Constantinople. He overthrew Leontios and ruled as Tiberios III (698–705). Caliph Abd al Malik ordered the defences of Carthage to be razed and the harbours destroyed; then his forces pressed on with the conquest of western North Africa, which was completed by their crossing into Spain at the Pillars of Hercules in 711.
The loss of Africa marked a massive reduction in the empire’s tax base and the removal of a wheat supply that had sustained the inhabitants of Rome for centuries. Fortunately, with a greatly reduced population and alternate sources in Sicily and southern Italy, Rome could survive, even with an increase in Christian refugees from Africa.16 But the destruction of Carthage was a symbol of imperial failure that made the remaining western provinces all the more important: Ravenna, still the centre of an exarchate, the island of Sicily, promoted to an independent thema, and Sardinia and the Balearics. Particular significance was attached to the Sicilian mint of Catania, which gained a superior position to that of Ravenna because the greater agricultural production of the region could furnish higher taxation to Constantinople. This shift heralded the key role that Sicily would play in eighth-century imperial politics.17
Against this background of Arab triumph in Africa and continuing campaigns against major cities in Asia Minor launched from Damascus, Justinian plotted to regain his throne. Despite the mutilation designed to prevent him from ever exercising imperial power again, he negotiated an alliance with the Khazar ruler of territory north of the Black Sea, who gave him his daughter (or possibly sister) in marriage, and won Bulgarian support for his return to Constantinople. In the summer of 705 he sailed back to the capital, assisted on land by a Bulgarian army. When the gates of the city remained closed to him, he was able to find a way into it through the aqueduct. Both Leontios and Tiberios were paraded in the Hippodrome and beheaded; military leaders were impaled on the walls of the city; and the patriarch himself was blinded and exiled to Rome.18
Once the mutilated Emperor Justinian II had resumed the throne in Constantinople, he summoned his wife, whom he had renamed Theodora, and their son, Tiberios, from Crimea and ‘they reigned jointly with him’.19 The emperor clearly aspired to recreate the glory of his sixth-century predecessors, Justinian I and Empress Theodora.
The emperor immediately attempted to have the canons of the Council in Trullo recognized throughout Christendom, sending an embassy to Rome led by two metropolitan bishops to demand the pope’s agreement. But John VII (705–7), like his predecessor Sergius, refused to sign and sent the acts back unchanged.20 Justinian then devised a different way to coerce the church of Rome and commanded the pope to travel to Constantinople. Since the instruction arrived after the death of Pope John, it was delivered to Pope Constantine (708–15), who accepted the emperor’s order.21
News of Justinian II’s imperial reinstatement was not greeted with any enthusiasm in Ravenna, where local soldiers had rallied to the defence of Pope Sergius. The city realized that if any Ravennati had also participated in the emperor’s mutilation in 695, he might institute reprisals. In this respect they were correct, as Justinian II displayed a level of revenge against both Cherson and Ravenna that led to an unprecedented disaster. The restored emperor was initially preoccupied with defeating the Bulgars (who were no longer allies) and regular Arab raids, but Agnellus the historian, writing with hindsight, believed that Ravenna was also on his mind. ‘What shall I initiate against Ravenna?’, he reports the emperor as saying. ‘These people inimical to me, through fraudulent counsel, have cut off my nose and ears.’22 Justinian knew that the army of Ravenna had prevented his envoy Zacharias from obtaining Pope Sergius’ signature to the canons of 692. In revenge for the disfigurement, which he may have associated with the Ravennati, as well as their clear opposition to imperial orders, Justinian instructed a reliable military commander (the strategos of Sicily) to sail up the Adriatic, capture the rebellious city and transport its archbishop and leading citizens to Constantinople to be put on trial.23
Agnellus relates the skilful deception by which the commander of the fleet ensnared and kidnapped Archbishop Felix, Johannicis, the leading citizens as well as the less exalted and sailed away. ‘The soldiers who were left behind went inside the city walls and used fire against the remaining citizens’, causing a terrible commotion and the people ‘groaned and wept’. The attack did not destroy Ravenna and Classis but was intended to remind the inhabitants of their necessary loyalty to Constantinople. It was a devastating example of the long arm of the emperor, who could draw on loyal resources in Sicily to punish the inhabitants of his capital city in the West.24
In the absence of their archbishop and leading citizens, the remaining Ravennati decided to take action to defend themselves. They chose a new leader, George, who was the son of Johannicis, and all agreed to follow his orders.25 George then rode around the exarchate and planned its defence. He divided the entire shoreline of the Adriatic coast so that close watch could be kept for any fleet, allotting duties to the cities of Sarsina, Cervia (at Nova on the sea), Papia (at Cesena), Forlimpopoli (at the port of Sava), Forlì, Faenza (at Lacherno), Imola (at the Coriandrum field) and Bologna at the Lion Port, and to farmers (at Candiano). Within Ravenna itself he created twelve military units in specific quarters, to which the local population were attached. These may have been based on already existing quarters, some of which were related to particular gates into the city such as the Porta Teguriensis or Posterula Latronum. And he identified eleven of the new units by a banner, named First, Second, Unconquered, Constantinopolitan, etc., and a twelfth was entrusted to the clergy and those not worthy in honour or family.26 In this way the people were all associated with a particular banner, which represented their area within the city.
This was clearly a rebellion designed to reassert the city’s independence and to repel any further naval force sent from Constantinople as well as Lombard attacks. George is reported as saying that they had all ‘drunk of the foul poison from the mouth of the serpent, which was brought from the Byzantine sea’. He continues, ‘Let us not flee from the Greeks (Danais) who are swollen in heart.’27 George had inspired the populace and the factions of Ravenna to put aside their old quarrels; he set them all to work at the tasks they could do best, young men to cut down poplar trees and virburnum bushes to mix with oak (presumably for ships) and tentmakers to make sails, instructing them to protect their heads from the heat.28
George had effected an entirely new defence system for Ravenna and its neighbouring regions by creating a citizen force based on city quarters. It probably replaced or incorporated the limited military capacity that had remained under the command of the imperial governor. No exarch is associated with the development, even though it must have drawn on inherited traditions of civic pride and responsibility.29 Such an independent civilian organization, created without any deference to Constantinople, makes Ravenna the prototype of an Italian citystate, a model for the later development of Venice and other north Italian republics. Since Agnellus said that the arrangement survived to his day, it was probably incorporated under the exarch’s control and persisted even after 751, when the Lombards took control. Its development reflects Ravenna’s notion of its own importance and confidence, as well as the capacity to respond with determination to the terrible news that Archbishop Felix had been blinded and banished to the Black Sea, just like Pope Martin.30
Justinian was, nonetheless, aware of the dangers to the exarchate and, in 710, the emperor sent another exarch, identified by the Roman Book of the Pontiffs as John Rizokopos (possibly serving a second term of office). Rather than sailing directly to Ravenna, the new exarch disembarked at Naples, presumably because Ravenna was already considered to be in a state of rebellious opposition to Constantinople. There he met Pope Constantine and a large clerical team that had set off from Rome on 5 October 710 on their way to the East. While the papal party left for Sicily, John proceeded to Rome where he murdered the four senior clerics who had been left in charge.31 He then crossed the Apennines to assert imperial order in Ravenna. Instead, he met with a hostile reception and ‘by God’s judgement on his atrocious deeds he died an ignominious death’.32 As soon as the death of the exarch was known in Constantinople, the emperor appointed another to take his place: Ravenna had to be brought to heel under the empire’s control, so that it could repel Lombard attacks.
Meanwhile, on his journey to the East Pope Constantine was received with great honour by the patrician and strategos Theodore in Sicily and passed the winter in Otranto. In the spring of 711 the papal party proceeded via Greece and the Aegean islands and was welcomed into Constantinople by the entire Senate and the patriarch, led by the very young prince Tiberios. As Justinian was in Nicaea in Asia Minor, he asked the pope to meet him in Nicomedia, where they resolved all the disagreements over the canons of the Council in Trullo. The emperor renewed all the Roman church’s privileges and allowed the pope to return home. The Roman Book of the Pontiffs naturally records this visit in glowing terms, dwelling on the highly respectful ceremonies put on by commanders at every stage of the journey, the pope’s affectionate reception by the emperor and his safe return to Rome in October 711. The canons agreed in the East, however, were never assimilated into western canon law. The claim made in canon 3 that Constantinople should have the same high status as Rome, though retaining primacy of honour for St Peter’s successors, continued to rankle. Indeed, many of the issues covered by the canons concerned communities in the East – such as law students who celebrated their final qualifications in pagan fashion, Armenian priests who added hot water to the communion wine, or those who did not use the correct liturgical form of the Trisagion (‘Holy, Holy, Holy’) prayer – that were irrelevant to western Christians. In the gradual separation of the two halves of Christendom, imperial decisions such as the transfer of the diocese of East Illyricum and the papal patrimonies of southern Italy to Constantinople probably took on much greater significance.
In November 711 Justinian II was overthrown in a military coup. When the news arrived in Ravenna, the city celebrated his death. The new ruler of Constantinople, Philippikos, ordered the disfigured head of his predecessor to be carried on a lance and displayed through all the cities of the West.33 This might have been appreciated as a token of apology for Justinian’s vicious actions and of reconciliation with the western provinces of Italy, whose wealth was so necessary to the East in the battle against the Arabs. It also legitimated the earlier rebellion of the Ravennati against the emperor. When the relic arrived in Ravenna, Johannicis’ sister was anxious to witness the proof that the ruler who had ordered her brother’s death in such a monstrous manner was really dead, predicting that once she was convinced of it, she would die. The decomposing remains of Justinian II were carried to her house, where she asked the bearer to stand still so that she could contemplate them from an upper window. After giving thanks for this sight she fell dead.34